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MUCH OLD AND MORE NEW HOG 

KNOWLEDGE, ARRANGED IN ALTERNATE 

STREAKS OF FAT AND LEAN 

BY 



JACOB HIGGLE 



ILLUSTRATED 



The pig., the rent payer of Europe, the 
mortgage lifter of Americay 



PHILADELPHIA 

WILMER ATKINSON CO. 

igi2 






Copyright, 1898 

Copyright, 1912 

V\ ILMER ATKINSON CO- 

Third Edition 
Twenty-Fifth Thousand 



€CU305905 



CONTENTS. 



List of Illustr 
Preface 
Chart Showing 
Chapter I. 
Chapter II. 
Chapter III. 
Chapter IV. 
Chapter V. 
Chapter VI. 
Chapter VII. 
Chapter VIII. 
Chapter IX. 
Chapter X. 
Chapter XI. 
Chapter XII. 
Chapter XIII. 
Chapter XIV. 
Chapter XV. 
Chapter XVI. 
Chapter XVII. 
Chapter XVIII. 
Chapter XIX. 
Chapter XX. 
Chapter XXI. 
Chapter XXII. 
Index 



Page 

ATIONS 6 

7 

External Hog 9 

Pig Figures 11 

Many Hogs of Many Kinds 13 

The Boar 25 

At Farrowing Time 27 

Little Pigs 35 

Shotehood 39 

The Piggery 43 

The Piggery {Continued) 47 

Swill Tub and Corn Crib 57 



Feeding Rations 63 

Recent Experiment's 69 

An Eastern Creameryman's Way ... 75 
Western pRACiiCtLs . . ..... 79 

Western Practices {Continued) 85 

Butchering and Curing Meats 89 

Smithfield Ham and Deerfoot Sausage 99 

Market Points 103 

The Poor Man's Pig iii 

The Manure Pile 117 

Hog Cholera 121 

Other Pig Ailments 133 

Summary and Conclusions 143 

146 




ILLUSTRATIONS OF BREEDS. 



Berkshires i6, 88, 102 

Cheshires 24, 28 

Chester Whites 17, 143 

DuROC Jerseys iS, 118 

Essex 23, 105 

Poland Chinas 14, 69, 81 

Tamworths 19, 30 

Yorkshires 20, 21, 117 





PREFACE. 

Hog husbandry is undergoing 
changes. New feeding methods have 
come into vogue ; methods based 
on a better understanding of foods 
and food effects. New breeds of hogs have come into 
existence ; breeds resulting from intelligent and per- 
sistent effort to adapt annual to locality, and to the 
foods of that locality, and to special market require- 
ments. 

Experience has heretofore been the main guide, 
but science now comes to the swineherd's aid. Experi- 
ence could only say that certain results would follow 
certain causes, but science now explains the causes. 
This is equally true of breeding, feeding, and the treat- 
ment of diseases, and there is less blind groping than 
formerly. 

Railroad development, the establishment of great 
abattoirs or slaughtering establishments, better export 
facilities, etc. , have produced marked effects upon the 
hog business in America during recent decades. 

In the preparation of pork products for market, 
there is, I think, a distinct tendency visible toward 
neater and more attractive packages, and also an in- 
creasing demand for lean or marbled meats rather 
than for excessively fat meats. 

The lard hog has been challenged by the bacon 
hog, and the indications are that the pig of the future 



8 PREFACE 

will be killed younger and smaller than the pig of the 
past. 

There seems to be an increasing willingness to 
regard the hog as a cleanly animal, capable of living 
apart from knee-deep filth, and able to drink pure 
water and to eat grass. 

As to swine diseases, great progress has been 
made in their study. Hostile bacteria are gradually 
coming under control, but it is very evident that epi- 
demics are more easily prevented than cured. Clean- 
liness is fully warranted by all economic considera- 
tions. Much space is devoted in the following pages 
to a review of hog cholera and other swine ailments. 

I give three chapters to the subject of feeding 
because of its prime importance in profitable hog hus- 
bandry. The proper balancing of rations is now quite 
fully understood by leading live stock men every- 
where, but there are still thousands of people who are 
wasting food in the pig sty and in the barn. It is 
worth while to give thought and time to the study of 
balanced rations, for the theory applies with equal 
force to all the live stock on the farm, and feeding 
tables and analyses are now within the reach of every- 
body, free of cost. It will be the fault of the Ameri- 
can people themselves if they do not henceforth feed 
their farm animals wisely and economically, for the 
Government and the experiment stations have placed 
ample data freely at their disposal. I hope this little 
book will prove helpful in the same lines. 

Jacob Biggle. 



Chart Showing External Hog. 






A 


Abdominal 


Region 


K 


Pastern-joint 


B 


Neck 




L 


Ergots or Rudiment 


C 


Chest or Thoracic Re- 




Claws (Front) 




gion 




M 


Claws 


D 


Withers 




N 


Front Cannon Bone 


E 


Back 




O 


Knee-joint 


F 


Croup 




P 


Shoulder-joint 


G 


Hip-joint 




Q 


Jowl 


H 


Stifle-joint 




R 


Snout 


I 


Hock 




S 


Head 


J 


Cannon Bone 







Diagram Showing the Differ- 
ent Cuts of Meat. 




Chapter I. 
PIG FIGURES. 




A great business this : millions in it , literally. — Tim. 

A quarter of a century ago 
there were about thirty milHon 
hogs in the United States. At 
the present time there are 
nearly fifty milHon pigs in this 
land of corn. 

Iowa has more than seven 
million, and Missouri and Illinois each have more 
than three million hogs. 

The average farm value of the swine of the United 
States, per head, is placed by the U. S. Department 
of Agriculture at I5.99. The highest valuations are 
to be found in the New England and Middle states, 
varying from I9.45 in Maine up to |i2 in Connec- 
ticut. Iowa is credited with an average price of I6.71 
and with a total hog valuation (U. S. Yearbook, 1904) 
of more than 148,000,000. This enormous total 
valuation is well nigh double that of Illinois, the 
next competing state, which is placed at something 
more than ^25,000,000, but with an average of only 
$6.74 per animal. Ohio and Indiana have hog 
valuations of more than $15,000,000 each. 

In American live stock interests, cows and cattle 
rank first in value, horses and mules second, hogs 



12 HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

third and sheep fourth, and yet our export of pork 
products is 1105,146,945, which is more than the ex- 
port of horses, cattle and their products combined. 

A great deal is said about the "corn belt" of the 
central West, but it is an error to suppose that all the 
pigs of the country are produced there. The fact is 
that the Southern states produce great numbers. 

The U. S. Government, through the Bureau of 
Animal Industry, now makes a scientific and careful 
inspection of all meats intended for interstate or foreign 
commerce. "The sanitary value of the system," says 
a recent report, "is beyond computation. It protects 
life and health. Inspection will become so general 
and so perfect that not a single pound of unwholesome 
meat will find its way from the United States to 
foreign markets, nor will any be sold at home which 
does not carry a certificate of inspection." During a 
single year, recently, the inspectors examined, micro- 
scopically, 979,380 specimens of pork, either whole 
carcasses or pieces, and found only a little more than 
one per cent, of samples containing trichinae. 

There is at present no official inspection of home 
consumed pork, or of pork intended for sale in the 
markets of the state where the hogs are grown and 
fattened. 

It has been asserted, thou,£;h I cannot say how 
truly, that there are more swine in the United States 
than in all the rest of the world combined. This is 
doubtful, though it is quite probable that no other 
part of the world produces such a bountiful supply 
of excellent hog foods as the United States. 



Chapter II. 
MANY HOGS OF MANY KINDS. 



There is no best breed of hogs^ but several of the breeds are 
mighty near the mark. — John Tucker. 

The breeds of hogs raised in America to-day are 
Poland China, Berkshire, Chester White, Duroc Jer- 
sey, Tamworth, Yorkshire, Hampshire, Mule Foot, 
Cheshire, Victoria, Essex, Suffolk, etc., and their 
proportion is in somewhat the order named. 

The Poland China, Berkshire, Essex, Mule Foot 
and Hampshire or Thin Rind breeds are black, or 
black with white markings. 

The Chester White, Yorkshire, Cheshire, Victoria 
and Suffolk breeds are white. 

The Duroc Jersey and Tamworth breeds are red 
or brown. 

The Berkshire, Yorkshire, Tamworth, Suffolk, 
Essex and Hampshire or Thin Rind are of English 
origin. 

Of American origin are the Poland China, Duroc 
Jersey, Chester White, Cheshire and Victoria. 

Brief and necessarily incomplete descriptions of 
the several breeds now in favor in the United States 
will be found in this chapter. It is natural for every 
enthusiastic hog man to think his breed is the best 
of all, and w^orthy of minute detailed description. 
Yet breed is much a matter of choice, and the best 



14 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

hog is the one which gives the greatest return for 
food consumed. Different locations seem to demand 
different types, and new conditions actually develop 
new strains. 

Possibly it is true that there are more American 
votes to-day for the Poland China breed than for any 
other, with Berkshires and Chester Whites and Duroc 
Jerseys in next highest esteem ; but it is much a 
question of fancy. New England, for instance, seems 
to think well of Small Yorkshires. 

Poland Chinas. This admirable and widely 
popular breed of hogs "largely originated," as one 




POLAND CHINA SOW, TEN MONTHS OLD. 

account puts it, "in southwestern Ohio." It had its 
foundation in various crossings made by stockmen in 
Warren and Butler counties, between the years 1816 
and 1842, though the present breed name was not 
finally adopted until 1872. The present fancy calls 
for pure black, or nearly so, with white points ; 
that is, white feet, white tip of tail and white about 



MANY HOGS OF MANY KINDS. 15 

nose. Often there are sheets or patches of white on 
the body, but the white color is being gradually bred 
out. The size of the Poland China is large. In shape 
and form it differs from the Chester White in being 
shorter in the legs, broader in the back, with larger 
and heavier hams according to size of carcass. The 
old-fashioned Poland China had drooping ears, but the 
modern type has a thin ear which tips nicely at the 
point rather than droops. In disposition it is very 
docile. It easily fattens at any age, and is in all re- 
spects an excellent breed. The name is unfortunate, 
for there is no Polish breed. 

The history of the Poland China hog is another of 
many proofs of Prof. Brewer's conclusion, after study- 
ing the origin of many breeds of horses, cattle, sheep 
and swine, viz. , that no breed has ever been established 
by the crossing of only two breeds, but by the cross- 
ing of three or more distinct breeds. As early as 1816 
there were used in Warren and Butler counties, Ohio, 
the Russian, the Byfield and the China, all mostly 
white, and their produce was known as the Warren 
County hog. Its size was very large and it was usually 
white. In 1835 importations of Berkshires were made 
by a packer, M. Beach, and used. In 1840 another 
Cincinnati packer imported Irish Graziers, a white hog; 
after which no other blood was introduced, unless we 
so consider the red boar, owned by a Polander, in 
Warren county, and his produce was called Poland 
pigs, and were usually red or spotted. 

Prior to the National Swine Breeders' Convention 
in 1872, when the name Magee was given the 
breed, it had many names, such as Dicks Creek, 



l6 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

Gregory Creek, Miami, Butler County, Warren 
County, and further west it was known as the Moore 
hog, since he had taken hogs from his old home 
in Warren county, to Canton, Illinois, and became a 
prominent breeder. This name, Magee, was too per- 
sonal and did not tell the truth as to origin. So at 
the next meeting of the National Swine Breeders' 
Convention the name Poland China was adopted, not 
because it tells anything of origin, but because it so 
effectually shut out any clue to place of origin or the 
name of any individual who had a prominent place as 
breeder or disseminator of the breed. 

The name Miami was contended for as historical 
and as truthfully telling the place of its origin after the 
English custom, as seen in the names Berkshire, York- 
shire and so on, but it is too late now to change it. So 
long as the rose smells as sweet by any other name, 
this valuable breed feeds and sells as well with this 
polyglot misnomer. 

Berkshires. This English strain, brought to 
America in 1823, is in high favor here. It is likewise 




PRIZE BERKSHIRE BOAR, UNDER ONE YEAR. 

in favor in England, in Australia and in other parts of 



MANY HOGS OF MANY KINDS. I7 

the world. It is a black pig, of medium size, with a 
dished face. Typical specimens have white points ; 
that is, white feet, nose and end of tail. The breed 
originated in the county of Berks, England, probably 
from crossings of the local breeds with Chinese and 
Neapolitan stocks. The meat of the Berkshire is in 
high esteem, the fat and lean being well intermingled, 
and the bones comparatively small. The animal 
grows steadily, under good treatment, to an early 
maturity, and is adaptable to its surroundings. With 
pasture and exercise the Berkshire is a good bacon 
hog ; otherwise it may go too much to lard. Varia- 
tions of this standard stock are advertised under the 




A CHESTER WHITE BEAUTY FROM THE WEST. 

names of Large Berkshire, Large English Berkshire, 
Long English Berkshire, Large Improved English 
Berkshire, etc. 

Chester Whites. This is one of the largest 
breeds, long and deep of body, with broad back and 
deep, full hams. The legs should be short, and the 
head also short and broad between the eyes. The face 



l8 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

is not much dished. The ears project forward. The 
hair is plentiful and sometimes wavy. The breed 
originated in Chester county, Pennsylvania, and is 
now widely distributed, and is in high favor. Chester 
White hogs have been among the heaviest porkers 
ever produced. This breed has been variously modi- 
fied, and is also advertised as Improved Chester White, 
Ohio Improved Chester White, Todd's Improved 
Chester White, etc. 

DuROC Jerseys. This breed, or its variations, is 




DUROC JERSEY. 

also on the American market under the names of 
Jersey Red, Duroc, Red Duroc, etc. 

Prior to the establishing of a record for this breed 
of red hogs, they generally went by the name of Jersey 
Reds. But this name did not recognize the fact that 
in New York there was a red hog known as the 
Duroc. At the suggestion of Colonel Curtis, the 
name Duroc Jersey was given to the record, which was 
to receive both the Jersey Reds and Durocs for record, 
and truthfully indicate its origin, which was about 1850. 
The Durocs originated in New York and the Jersey 



MANY HOGS OF MANY KINDS. I^ 

Reds in New Jersey, and are claimed to have for 
ancestors the Red Berkshire and Tamworth. 

The Duroc Jersey was a large, coarse hog, had a 
long, deep body, broad back and heavy lopping ears. 
Its color varies from a cherry red to brown and even 
to a light yellow. Sometimes there is a little black on 
the lower portion of the body or on the legs, but since 
the establishing of a standard the appearance of black 
is quite objectionable. Since the breed has been 
introduced into the West it has changed in form, as have 
all breeds on a main corn diet. The bone is less and 
the angularity has given way to plumpness. The ear, 
too, is smaller, and breaks or tips instead of lopping 
over the eyes. 

Tamvvorths. This English breed is of recent 
origin, deriving its name from Tamworth, an English 
town adjacent to both Staffordshire and Warwickshire, 
in which counties it is abundant. In color the animals 




AGED TAMWORTH SOW. 

are red, chestnut or brown. The Tamworths are 
bacon hogs, noted for their large production of lean 
meat of especially fine quality. The sows are usually 



20 HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

prolific, and the pigs are rapid growers and mature 
early. The body is massive, the head small, the ears 
erect, and the snout inclined to be long. The hair is 
long, silky and thick. In England they are popular, 
and not a few are now in the United States. The 
breed is sometimes called Red Tamworth. 

Yorkshires. There are three more or less dis- 
tinctly defined strains of Yorkshires, known respec- 
tively as Small, Middle and Large. All are white. 

The Small Yorkshire is regarded as the smallest 
and finest of swine. It has a dished face, short snout, 
heavy and deep body, short legs and fine bone. Small 




SMALL YORKSHIRE. 

Yorkshires mature early and are very docile. They 
are popular in England and in some parts of America. 
The Middle Yorkshires and Large Yorkshires have 
many points in common. They quickly mature and 
produce a large proportion of lean meat. They are 
long and deep in body, short in head, conspicuously 
dished face, and strong in bone. The skin is pinkish 
in color, with an occasional bluish spot, and the hair 
is white, thick and soft. The ears are of good size 



MANY HOGS OF MANY KINDS. 21 

and point forward, Yorkshires are advertised also 
under the names of Improved Yorkshires, Improved 
Large Yorkshires, Large White Yorkshires, Improved 




AGED MIDDLE WHITE YORKSHIRE SOW. 

White Yorkshires, etc. They are prized as prohfic 
bacon liogs. 

Cheshire. This excellent white breed originated 
in Jefferson county, New York, and the animals used 
to be occasionally called Jefferson County pigs. 
Harris says that they were at first exhibited as Cheshire 
and Yorkshire hogs, and afterward as Improved 
Cheshires or even as Improved Yorkshires. These 
facts give a pretty good idea of their origin. They 
have been widely distributed, and are now known only 
as Cheshires. The old English Cheshire breed was 
large and coarse, but the American Cheshire is a great 
improvement. The color is white, the ears small and 
fine, cheek well developed, bodies rather long, good 
shoulders and hams, and comparatively small bones. 
The breed is a valuable one, and is popular in certain 



22 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

parts of the country. There is a Cheshire register. 

Victorias. This white breed was originated in 
Indiana, within recent years, by George F. Davis. 
The ancestry is said to be Poland China, Chester 
White, Berkshire and Suffolk. 

Mule Foot. The Mule Foot hog was brought 
to the attention of the public about ten years ago, in 
the mountainous section of Missouri and Arkansas. 
There were but one or two herds known of at that 
time. Their peculiarity is in not having a cloven 
foot, but a hoof like that of a mule. 

Hogs of the Mule Foot breed are mainly black, 
with white points. They have coats of soft hair ; fat- 
ten easily and can be brought to a weight of from 400 
to 600 pounds or more at two years of age. They 
are of fairly gentle disposition but possess no superi- 
ority over other breeds. 

They undoubtedly have a strong constitution 
which enables them to throw off ordinary diseases. 
While they are extremely hearty they cannot make 
good the claim that they are cholera proof. 

They are now scattered over the country and 
there are a great number of herds in Indiana where 
a Record Association has been established. They 
were shown in a class at the Indiana State Fair, 1911. 

Essex. This is a small wholly black breed of 
English origin, having been developed in Essexshire. 
It has nearly or quite passed out of existence in its 
native country, the result of continued crossing with 
the Berkshire and Suffolk. (The English Suffolk is 
black, the American Suffolk white.) The Essex 
breed is still recognized in the United States. 



MANY HOGS OF MANY KINDS. 2$ 

Suffolk. The English Suffolk, as above stated, 
is black„ The American Suffolk, a white pig, is 
believed to be a variety of the English Yorkshire, cor- 
responding in size to the Middle Yorkshire. It has a 
small head, short snout, dished face, upright ears, a 
short neck, good length of body, fine bone, pinkish 
skin and soft hair. It matures early and produces 
excellent meat. It is, however, rather sensitive to 
sudden changes of temperature. 

Common Pigs. Of course a very large propor- 
tion of the pig population of the United States belongs 




PRIZE YEARLING ESSEX BOAR. 

to the nondescript class ; that is, to no particular 
breed. Owners of such pigs cannot do better than to 
cross their sows with thoroughbred boars ; but a 
common boar should in no case be used. 

Some success has followed experiments in breed- 
ing the Southern razor-backs with thoroughbred 
stock, the native blood being subsequently reduced to 
one-fourth or one-eighth. The health and energetic 
habits of the semi- wild animal are thus retained, and 



24 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

also certain desirable flavors in the meat, while the 
later crosses readily and cheaply fatten. 




CHESHIRE YEARLING SOW. 



HOG TALK. 

Go many miles to get a good sire. 

Choose the breed and save the feed. 

Do not trade a long body for a short nose. 

Do not choose a poor boar to save a dollar or two. 

American and English pig names do not always correspond. 

The bacon type of hogs has more stamina than the lard type. 

Cheshires should dress from 500 to 600 pounds when fully 
grown and fattened. 

A streak of lean and a streak of fat. Breed for it, feed for it, 
and give exercise for it. 

Two breeds of swine seldom long continue in equal favor in 
the same neighborhood. 

Small Yorkshire and Essex have been called pig-pen breeds. 
They are chunky, quiet and lazy. 

The best breed is the one which will rear most pigs and make 
most and best pork on cheapest food. 

Hogs with lopped ears are not so nervous as those with up- 
right ears. As a rule they make better mothers. 

For the profitable sow lay more stress on good bone, good 
constitution and big litters than on a number in a herd book. 

The old razor-back has been driven from the pig kingdom, and 
the perambulating lard tub will have to follow. Mix lean and fat. 



Chapter III. 
THE BOAR. 




The boar coimts for half, and a big half. — Tim. 

If we suppose that each parent ex- 
erts tlie same influence upon the off- 
spring it is easy to see that the influence 
of the boar is precisely equal to that 
of all the sows combined. 

Vigor of constitution is believed to 
depend mainly on the dam, but outward form, structure 
and limbs upon the sire. Fineness of bone and early 
maturity depend on the boar. 

Boars of all breeds should be of strong build, but 
without coarseness. Neck and body should be short 
(for the particular breed), and limbs short rather than 
long. Such features indicate bodily vigor and easy 
feeding. Compactness of form is more desirable in the 
boar than in the sow. 

Width between fore legs, with large girth behind 
them, denotes active heart and lungs. Straight, strong 
limbs and erect hoofs indicate solidity of animal frame- 
work. Smooth skin and soft hair denote activity of 
the liver and general health. Add to these qualities a 
quiet disposition, without laziness, and the result will 
probably be a good sire. 

In crossing two breeds a male of the smaller breed 
is commonly used. 



26 , HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

During the summer season the boar should be 
allowed the run of a grass lot if possible, and should 
be fed some grain, but not kept too fat. At the breed- 
ing season he should be in a strong and vigorous con- 
dition, and from this time on through the breeding 
season he should be fed quite liberally of stimulating 
but not fattening food. Let him be rather gaining 
flesh during the breeding season than losing flesh. 

Do not turn him loose with the sows. This I 
confess is more convenient, but if the experience of 
good breeders is worth anything it is dear convenience. 
Keep him in a pen alone near the sows, and when a 
sow is in heat allow him to serve her once, and then 
return him to his pen. A boar fully grown and prop- 
erly fed may be allowed to serve two sows a day for 
several days in succession, if necessary, but this should 
not be continued indefinitely if the best results are to 
be expected. About one sow a day on an average is 
about the limit. 

Disappointing litters not infrequently result from 
over-service of the male. 



BRISTLES. 

Avoid in-breeding. 

It will pay every time to use a thoroughbred boar. 

The sire should have bran or oats ; fed for vigor, not for fat. 

The young boar should be trained to be driven ; it can be 
done. 

An ungovernable boar is a great nuisance and always dan- 
gerous. 

Neighbors sometimes join in buying a good, thoroughbred 
boar, charging fees to outsiders. 

Beware of the scrub thoroughbred. Blood without quality 
is worse than quality without blood. 



Chapter IV. 
AT FARROWING TIME. 



The 7uise breeder will give the sozvs proper food and sufficient 
exercise and then trust nature at /arrowing time. — ^John Tucker. 



:.-^**H 



A sow that has had wise feeding- 
during the period of pregnancy will 
seldom have difficulty in giving birth to 
her offspring, 
A sow carrying pigs is engaged in a work which 
demands a full supply of the tissue-making or nitro- 
genous foods ; foods rich in protein. Besides main- 
taining her own life she must secrete the material for 
building up the bodies of perhaps half a score of little 
pigs and then be ready to supply them with milk. 
These pigs at birth will average two and one-half 
pounds in weight, and it is easy to see that the func- 
tion of motherhood is a severe one. 

Demanding nitrogenous food, such as clover, 
wheat bran or middlings, linseed meal, or something 
else rich in protein, it is not hard to understand that a 
sow may suffer greatly if such foods are denied her, 
nor is it surprising that when pregnant sows are fed 
almost exclusively on corn or corn-meal ( which con- 
tains only one part of protein to nine or ten of carbo- 
hydrates and fat) they should be so nearly crazy for 
protein as to eat their own young when they are born. 
Such sows are literally insane and irresponsible, the 



28 HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

result of poor feeding. The animal is starving for a 
certain kind of food. 

In selecting a brood sow the choice should be 
made from a large litter. The sow should have a 
long body, plenty of teats, level back, straight and 
short legs, fine hair and a quiet disposition. Such a 
sow may grow so deep as to be slab-sided, but if she 
possesses good traits and high constitutional vigor her 
coarseness can be toned down by the use of a finer- 




YOUNG CHESHIRE SOW — A GOOD ONE. 

built thoroughbred boar. The disposition of the 
young, unbred sow may be quickly learned by catch- 
ing and holding her. 

The disposition of the sow depends largely on 
her treatment from pighood up till maturity. A sow 
that has been kindly treated will in most cases be kind 
and gentle, and too much emphasis cannot be placed 
on the importance of having a sow so gentle that at 
farrowing time she will allow the attendant to enter 
her pen (if necessary) without becoming excited. 
The life of the whole litter and often that of the sow 



AT FARROWING TIME. 29 

depends on the assistance which may be rendered by 
a skilful attendant. In an experience of over twenty 
years I have never lost either a sow or her litter at 
farrowing time on account of the sow not being able 
to be delivered of her pigs; though I have lost many 
sows and litters because the sow would not quietly 
submit to assistance. 

Sows should not farrow before reaching the age 
of one year, nor should boars be used before attaining 
the age of eight or ten months, though many breeds 
will mate earlier if permitted to do so. It is a com- 
mon mistake to breed hogs when they are too young. 

The practice of mating a large male with a small 
sow, which is so common, has caused the invention of 
various breeding boxes or crates, of which several are 
now on the market, arranged so that the different sized 
animals stand upon different levels, the height of the 
rear platform being adjustable. 

First litters are not usually as good as succeeding 
ones, and two-year-old sows are better for breeding- 
purposes than younger animals. A first-class brood 
sow should be profitable for a number of years — six 
or seven, in some cases. 

The period of gestation is sixteen weeks. I have 
never had a sow give birth to a litter of living pigs at 
less than no days. My experience teaches me that 
young sows carry their pigs in nine cases out of ten 
from III to 113 days. Old sows or sows after first 
litter carry their pigs from 112 to 117 days, the time 
increasing with age. 

The pigs should suck for six or eight weeks, and 
the mother should have a resting period of three 




30 HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

weeks. This will make it just about possible to raise 
two litters per year. It is more common in the West to 
allow them to suck for from ten to twelve weeks. 
The pigs get a better start and grow more rapidly, 
and, it is claimed, make stronger and better hogs. 

It is a ques- 
tion for individual -^ j i. 
breeders to deter- 
mine whether to { -j 

breed once a ^ 

year, twice a year, a tamworth litter. 

or three times in two years. There are instances of 
three litters a year, but the best intense breeding is 
somewhere about two litters per year ; an average of 
perhaps twenty-seven weeks to each litter. The sow 
will usually come in heat a few days after the pigs are 
weaned ; sometimes in three or four days, depending 
on the amount of milk secretion and general condition. 
A sow in good vigor will come in heat sooner than 
one which is in poor condition. 

A week or two before farrowing time the sow 
should be put in separate quarters, apart from the other 
hogs. She will carry straw and make herself a nest, 
and will usually require no attention. But it is well 
to keep an eye on the event, and there are cases where 
help is needed, and where surgical instruments are 
necessary for the safe removal of the pigs. Forceps 
for this purpose are on the market. Sows rarely have 
trouble at farrowing time if the bowels are kept open. 

In the early stages of gestation no special care as 
to food is necessary, but as the period advances there 
must be an increased supply of nitrogenous food. 



AT FARROWING TIME. 3I 

The SOW about to farrow will eagerly eat carbonaceous 
food, like potatoes, turnips, apples, cabbage, roots, 
etc. Such food, in connection with milk, wheat bran, 
linseed meal or other nitrogenous food, is good for 
her. Clean sods, charcoal, etc., seem to have the 
power to aid digestion, and the penned -up sow should 
have such things. Never feed an exclusively corn or 
corn-meal diet. 

Laxative food, like linseed meal, serves the 
double purpose of keeping the bowels open and also 
of supplying needed nitrogen or protein. 

The brood hog should not be fat, but neither 
should she be thin in flesh, but must be in good con- 
dition and well nourished. 

A few hours before farrowing the milk always 
comes into the teats. Internal nourishment of the off- 
spring has been completed, and nature now makes pro- 
vision for the new order of things. Overfeeding, or 
feeding with heating or constipating foods, is likely to 
make trouble, and hence it is common practice to feed 
lightly at this time. Sow's milk is much richer in fat 
than cow's milk. 

Some breeders give no food for twenty-four hours 
after farrowing, but it will do no harm to furnish the 
sow with some bran or middlings in warm water if she 
seems hungry or thirsty. For three days the food 
ration should be light. After that she should have 
milk, bran slop and other nutritious foods for a week or 
two, and then some corn and other things for variety. 

Quietness and rest are more essential than food 
immediately after farrowing, and the sow should 
remain undisturbed as much as possible. 



32 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

In cold weather it is sometimes necessary to cover 
the new arrivals with a blanket, but this need not be 
done if the sty is free from draughts and not too 
spacious. Some breeders even use a jar or bag of 
hot water under the blanket. 

Exercise is to be encouraged, for the sake of both 
dam and offspring. The bed should be wholly 
changed and made fresh a few days after the birth of 
the pigs, and wet straw carefully removed at all times. 
Idleness and too much food and warmth sometimes 
cause the little pigs to contract a disease known as 
"thumps." The cure is difficult. Exercise is the 
prevention. 

If a sow's teat is so sore she will not let the pigs 
suck, cut it off and save the pigs. Sometimes by 
smearing it with tar the pigs will let it alone and the 
sow will let her young suck ; but if she will not, cut the 
nipple off close to the udder and the trouble is over. 

It is sometimes necessary to throw a sow on her 
side and fasten her in that position, in order to allow 
her pigs to feed. In case the sow persists in her 
refusal to claim her pigs, they may be kept near her 
in a ventilated box, and fed as indicated until she 
accepts them. A sow may safely be kept fastened on 
her side all night. 

It is well to teach the pigs to eat from the trough 
as soon as possible, which means that it costs less to 
feed them direct than through the teats of the dam. 
This gives the sow more of the season in which to rear 
another litter. 

As soon as the sow has gotten used to the loss of 
her pigs she may, if the weather be warm, be put into 



AT FARROWING TIME. 33 

a pasture and allowed to run there until the next far- 
rowing time, being fed sparingly or not at all. It is 
preferable, however, to give her a little wheat mid- 
dlings, unless she has access to clover, peas or other 
nitrogenous food. 



VIGILANTS. 

A good pig may be of any color. 

Avoid feeding corn in hot weather. 

Two litters a year is good practice. 

Save the best sow pigs for breeders. 

Do not breed young, immature sows. 

Do not kill good breeding stock too early. 

Keep a record of the performance of each sow. 

If the sow eats the after-birth no harm will ensue. 

The spaying of sows does not seem to be profitable. 

Breed any month in the year, if it suits your market. 

Breed coarse, well-formed dams to finer and smaller sires. 

If lice are suspected on sows use grease before the juniors 
arrive. 

Fatten the rattle-headed sow that lies on her pigs. Try 
another. 

It is all right to turn corn into pork, but not into mere 
pork oil. 

Separate young sows from older ones during period ot 
pregnancy. 

There is no more profitable animal on the farm than a 
prolific sow. 

When pork is low in price is the time to increase the 
number of breeders. 

It was a prolific sow that presented her owner with seventy- 
seven little pigs in five litters. 

A breeding sow can be kept on about the same amount of 
food that it costs to winter a shote. 

An old sow is apt to be sluggish, and the risks of her 
killing her pigs are twice as great as with a young one. 




k t 



Chapter V. 



LITTLE PIGS. 




It seems to 7ne that the juniors always do best when neither 
coddled, pampered, overfed nor underfed, but just have a fair 
chance to take care of themselves. — Dorothy Tucker. 

When the pigs are twenty- 
four hours old let the sow out 
into the air and sun for a little 
exercise. If the weather is 
cold a blanket may be needed 
over the young things while 
the dam is aosent. As the 
pigs get older let the sow's 
time for exercise be gradually increased. 

Young pigs, especially first litters, must be jeal- 
ously guarded against cold. Early litters should be 
born in closely-built and protected structures, though 
even a tight building may be so roomy as to be unsafe. 
In this case throw up a temporary floor or scaffold, 
and cover it deeply with straw, so as to make a warm 
compartment for the sow and her pigs. They will 
need such shelter until the pigs are eight weeks old. 

As a rule, March first is early enough for a litter 
to arrive in the Northern states, especially if the sow be 
green or immature. September is a good time for 
autumn litters. 



2)6 HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

There is a wide diversity of practice in teaching 
the pigs to eat from the trough. Some careful breeders 
feed the sow in a separate compartment, away from 
the pigs, lest the little ones pick up scraps for which 
their digestions are not yet ready. Others permit the 
pigs to take their chances along with the mother. 
Others provide a small separate trough, out of reach 
of the sow, and feed the pigs oats, bran, soaked corn 
and even wheat. The wheat should be cracked if thus 
fed, and I should in no case use the corn alone. The 
muscle-making foods will make some fat, but the fat- 
making foods will produce little muscle. Corn has, it 
is true, some muscle-producing ability, but not much, 
and what small pigs need is food that will make 
muscle, bone and blood. The real demand for King 
Corn will come at a later stage of the operation ; not 
in pighood. 

All in-doors or cold weather farrowing demands 
careful shelter and separate management for each sow, 
so that crowding and injury may not ensue. Sows 
due to pig in April are more likely to have good luck 
with their young than sows farrowing in February or 
March, unless good care and shelter be given to the 
earlier litters. 

On the plan of two litters a year it is evident that 
the two lots of pigs must be cared for differently, since 
one lot comes in spring and the other in autumn. But 
the summer freedom and exercise of the dam, in con- 
nection with a diet of grass and clover, may be confi- 
dently expected to produce more thrifty pigs in 
September than were littered in March, and it is there- 
fore largely a question of care and management 



LITTLE PIGS. 37 

whether the fall pigs or the spring pigs make the 
more rapid progress in growth and development. 

Summer feeding is commonly supposed to be 
much cheaper than winter feeding, because in cold 
weather a large portion of the food is burned as fuel 
to supply animal heat. It is only fair to say, however, 
that during the sucking period the September pig has 
more warm weather and a greater variety of food, 
including grass, than the March pig. Hence the fall 
pig just after weaning should be a cheaper and a more 
thrifty animal than the spring pig at the corresponding 
period of its growth. 

The arithmetic of the question is not so hostile to 
winter feeding as would at first appear, for the heat- 
producing foods are not expensive, and care and 
shelter count for much. Then there is not uncom- 
monly a better market quotation on well-rounded six- 
months-old pigs in March or April than in the fall, 
and ready cash in the early spring is a very acceptable 
thing. 

Castration should be attended to at the age of six 
weeks, while the pigs are still with the sow ; and I 
cannot too emphatically urge that not one of the male 
pigs of a common litter be kept for breeding purposes, 
no matter how promising its appearance may be. 
No reliance can be placed upon the offspring of such 
a male, even though sired by a thoroughbred. 

Spaying of the females, which consists in remov- 
ing the ovaries, is not much practised in this country. 

The first thing a litter of pigs will do is to fight 
for milk. It is sometimes necessary to cut off their 
sharp front teeth, to prevent damage. 



38 HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

Pigs should not be weaned under eight weeks old; 
ten is a better age; and if the sows are bred only once 
a year, twelve weeks old will do better still. 

The process is differently performed by different 
breeders. I know of no better plan than to change the 
food of the dam from a milk-producing to a non- 
milk-producing basis (corn-meal and water with grass 
for instance), and take her away from the pigs for 
twenty-four hours. Then let her return, and allow 
them to suck. Then keep her away for two whole 
days, and again allow them to suck. Then make the 
separation final. The pigs have become shotes. 



SQUEALS. 

Give oats to the youngsters. 
Feed up the runt for a roaster. 
Have a few pigs every year to sell to 
neighbors. 

Attempt to have pigs of only one size in the same enclosure. 

Small pigs grow rapidly in a cold rain ; that is, rapidly smaller. 

Avoid scours by keeping things clean about trough and swill 
tub. 

Let runts run wfth sow if she is not to be bred for a second 
litter. 

Any day in the year is suitable for a pig's birthday, if it can 
thus meet a market requirement. 

In cold weather it will pay well to give warm food to the pigs 
for a time after weaning them. 

After a pig attains seventy-five pounds it is ready to lay on a 
pound or more of flesh per day, if well fed. 

Get sow and pigs on the ground by the time the youngsters 
are three weeks old. Grass is food and medicine. 

As a last resort, where the mother has insufficient milk, put a 
rubber nipple on a tin bottle and assist things. 

Aim for a daily gain of one and one-half pounds per pig. If 
you do not work for it you will probably not get it. 



Chapter VI. 
SHOTEHOOD. 




A good start zvith pigs is more than half the race, for a well- 
started pig is nearly sure to be healthy. — Tim. 

The treatment 
of shotes, or young 
hogs, is a matter of 
moment, for profits 
depend upon it. 
Shall we feed for 
bacon or for lard? 
WHERE IS OUR MOTHER? Is the aim an ani- 

mal weighing 200 pounds or 400 pounds ? Is reliance 
to be placed wholly on home-produced stuffs or par- 
tially upon purchased foods ? 

I think most of my readers must have recognized 
the general tendency toward smaller and lighter hogs, 
as compared with old-fashioned customs. Many mar- 
kets will now take 200-pound animals in preference to 
300-pound animals. The meat of the smaller animal is 
certainly better and more palatable, and there can be no 
doubt that it is more cheaply produced, for pigs gain in 
weight much more rapidly during the first six months 
of their growth than during the second six months. 

Local conditions must govern local practices, but 

wherever the light hog will sell let him be thus sold. 

When it comes to the food question, and economy 

demands the consumption of home-grown products 



40 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

(no matter what), it is only necessary to properly 
balance such rations, either by use of what is already 
on hand or by the purchase of whatever may be lack- 
ing. It is high time, however, for everybody to realize 
that corn is not a perfect food for hogs, and must not 
be used alone, except for finishing. 

I have no notion of allowing pigs to root up new 
clover sod, for that is trespassing on next year's food 
supply, but otherwise I am in some doubt about the 
necessity for rings. It is the nature of the beast to 
root, and perhaps it can be broken up in no manner 
except by the use of a piece of iron in the snout. But I 
am forced to think that perhaps the pig roots in the 
ground to satisfy certain cravings for food which would 
otherwise remain unsatisfied. A smoothing harrow 
and some grass seed will repair damage caused by 
rooting, especially if there is more than one pasture, 
so as to make it possible for the grass to grow. Each 
swine raiser must decide for himself whether or not to 
use rings. My western friend tells me that rings are 
never necessary in the noses of hogs fed salt and char- 
coal ; that a pig roots simply because there is a lack of 
phosphoric acid for bone growth. 

There are both iron and copper rings on the mar- 
ket, but I do not like the latter. The ring must not 
be set in so deeply as to wound the bone, and never 
through the partition between the nostrils. In my 
opinion much evil has come from putting rings in the 
snouts of hogs. 

There is perhaps no better system of hog pastur- 
ing than a series of long narrow fields. Here the hogs 
may eat grass, and the cultivation of forage crops in 



SHOTEHOOD. 



41 



the unoccupied enclosures makes it easy to feed by 
simply cutting the stuff and throwing it over the fence. 
The narrow plats thus grow rich quite rapidly, and 
produce more and more pig feed. Hogs can be suc- 
cessfully grown in pens, but pasturage is surely better. 
A shaded enclosure, like an orchard is an excellent 
place for pigs. 

Water should at all times be accessible to hogs ; 
preferably running water, unless the stream comes 
from farms where hogs are kept. Disease is likely to 
follow such streams. The hog is a clean animal, 
if given a fair chance. 

The sleeping apartments 
should not be neglected, or 
they will become foul and un- 
wholesome. Sunshine is the 
greatest microbe killer ; there- 
fore let sunshine into every 
pig pen. 

Penned pigs need a good 
scratching post. Get a rough log and fasten it securely 
in the pen, as shown in the illustration. It will be 
popular and it will pay. The sheds should be cleaned 
out frequently, both in winter and in summer. 

Pigs do best in small lots ; not more than five in 
a nest. It is much easier to secure fair play at feeding 
time with a small number than with a large number. 
Large herds should be divided for sleeping purposes 
and for feeding, and pregnant sows must be looked 
after that they are not too much knocked about. 

There will be but few sick hogs if dry, warm, 
clean sleeping quarters are always available. Grow- 




42 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

ing pigs will not harm themselves by overeating if 
they can obtain sufficient exercise. 

The production of lean meat is partly a matter of 
breed and partly a matter of food and exercise. Some 
breeds are known as bacon hogs, and these seem to 
produce much lean meat. The nitrogenous foods 
distinctly favor lean meat, and exercise operates in the 
same direction. Lean meat is muscle. 

To produce lean meat practically, I give the ani- 
mals a large pasture field, and allow them to eat grass 
and to root. I feed skim-milk and bran or middlings, 
and keep them there until the approach of cold 
weather, when they must, of course, have access to 
warm quarters. A little corn at the last is keenly 
relished by the pigs, and does not excessively increase 
the fat, if fed for only a few weeks before butchery. 
Such hogs would, of course, lay on fat very rapidly 
under a long-continued corn diet. 




PROMISES. 
Bristles denote a coarse skin. 
A wet pen will make a lame hog. 
The currycomb will do no harm. 
Black teeth do not indicate disease. 
Shift the hog pasture every year or two. 
Give a hoggish hog a separate apartment. 
DINNER TIME. -pj^g j^^g jg ,jqj responsible for poor fences. 
Doctoring cannot take the place of cleanliness. 
Swine, like foolish men, never back down when they are wrong. 
The proper development of the pig is lean first and fat after- 
ward. 

Chicken-eating hogs need more wheat middlings, clover or 
skim-milk and less corn. 



Chapter VII. 
THE PIGGERY. 



One sow ayid one Jitter in each enclosure is the ideal num- 
ber. — Tim. 

The ground where the piggery is to be located 
should be high and dry, so that the rains will wash 
away all filth. If the ground is well shaded and well 
watered, so much the better, but by no means should it 
be located on a stream which flows across other land, as 
the danger of disease is thus greatly increased. A spring 
located on ground over which you have entire control 
would be all right, but statistics show that streams are 

the most potent 
agency in the distri- 
bution of hog chol- 
era germs. In the 
absence of a spring, 
water can be cheap- 
ly and conveniently 
furnished with a tank 
LOOK OUT FOR CHOLERA HERE. placed ou somc ele- 

vation and pipes to carry the water where needed. 
Windmills are now so cheap and so effective that the 
matter of supplying water in this manner can be ac- 
complished at little cost. In the absence of natural 
shade, artificial shade should be constructed by setting 
crotches in the ground and laying poles or rails across 




44 



BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 



and then covering with a good roofing of straw. It 
should be located on the north side of a fence or hedge 
and should not be too high. Dirt is the best floor that 
can possibly be used for a shed of this kind. In hot 
weather the hogs delight to lie on the ground and, if 
allowed to do so, they rarely seem to suffer much from 
heat. Great care should be used not to expose hogs 
to the sun and worry when the weather is hot, for no 
animal will die so quickly from heat as the hog. 

For pasturing hogs during the fattening process, a 
good rule is to allow an acre of ground for every five 
hogs, letting them all run in one pasture. If raising 
pigs is the object, the pasture should be divided into 
lots, of about an acre each, with pig-tight fencing. 
This enclosure will be large enough for two sows and 
their litters, and not more than two sows and litters 
should be kept in the same enclosure. When several 
litters are allowed to run together, the strong rob the 
weak in spite of anything I was ever able to do. But 
when kept separate, all feed alike and grow alike. If 
I had room for only two litters I would raise but two 
litters. Two litters well cared for will make more 
money than four litters poorly cared for. 

Where pigs run in a pasture or orchard, the shelter 

for the farrowing sow, 
shown herewith, has been 
found highly satisfactory. 
A horse can be hitched to 
it and take it to any part 
of the field. In the illus- 
tration the boards are cut away on one side, showing 
the interior. It should be made eight by four feet with 




THE PIGGERY. 45 

a sharp peaked roof. The runners should be made of 
two-inch plank, eight feet long and two inches wide, 
with holes for a chain in each front end, set four feet 
apart and fastened together at the back w ith a piece 
two by three, four feet long. This home will make am- 
ple room for a sow and her litter and can be placed 
where convenient, facing the south. It will also ac- 
commodate three good-sized sows before farrowing 
and keep them comfortable. Around the sides of this 
home, or any other pen used by a farrowing sow, 
should be fastened a strip nine inches wide and nine 
inches from the floor as a protection for the little pigs. 
This arrangement will prevent them being crushed 
when the sow lies down, as they can escape under this 
slat and crawl out at either end. 

Another rather more pretentious western farrow- 
ing pen, as here shown, comes to me from Ohio. It is 
six by seven feet, built on three two 
by three oak scantling and is six feet 
,., high in front and two at the rear, giv- 
ing the roof a steep pitch. Grooved 
pine boards are best for sides and ends, with a door 
two and one-half feet wide. Place the shelter so that 
the door will face the south. Put a clevis in the middle 
runner so that the pen can be moved. Block the run- 
ners up so that they will not rot off. Keep the doors 
closed a few days after the pigs are farrowed, accord- 
ing to the weather. 

A convenient portable pen 
for a small pig and well suited '-^^^^f^^ 
for getting the pig out of doors ' -^ ' '" 
on a village place is shown herewith. It has no bottom 






46 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

The covered end protects the occupant from sun and 
rain. Two wheels made from a plank are screwed at 
one end, while handles are placed at the other. It can 
be moved its length every day. 

Many cheap shelters for hogs used in the Ohio 
valley are made by piling the straw 
from the stacker over and around a 
simple frame-work. The illustration 
shows a type of this cheap but effec- 
tive shelter. It would be better with the sides boarded 
up and straw piled all over it except the front. 

For a permanent hog pasture sow four quarts of 
clover and two bushels of blue grass where this grass 
does well. If not blue grass then orchard grass, the 
same quantity. The clover will furnish feed for the 
first season while the other grasses, which are slower 
to start, are coming up. The clover will usually die 
out the second year, but the blue grass or the orchard 
grass will hold on for years if allowed to get a start 
before winter sets in, so as to cover the crowns of the 
plants. The quantity of seed named is where the 
land is in excellent order, and if it is not, double the 
amount should be used to insure a thick sward. 



Chapter VIII. 



THE PIGGERY— Continued. 



Don't give the hogs the sunny side of a wire fence for shelter, 
nor yet put them in a little four by six pen. A well planned hog 
house will pay. ^ohn Tucker. 

When building a more pretentious and permanent 
pig pen, the following general suggestions will be help- 
ful. Select a dry spot where there will be natural drain- 
age, away from the house and other farm buildings, 
and place the building so that it will open to the south 
or southeast, and far enough away from the house to 
avoid any bad odors reaching there. No stock enjoy 
a sheltered place where they can bask in the sun more 
than swine. Both roof and floor should be tight, warm 
and dry. To be shut up in a little, damp, nasty pen 
on a plank floor or on stones or in the mud with a wet 
or filthy bed is not conducive to health. While every- 
thing is warm and tight, do not overlook plenty of well 
arranged ventilation. 

My old pen was floored with oak planks, but in my 
new pen I have tried a cement floor for the feeding pen 
and entries ; of course, the runways back of each pen 
are not cemented. It is not well for the hogs to sleep 
on a cemented floor even with a good bedding of straw, 
as they will work down to the cold cement, which robs 
them of animal heat. It takes too much corn to warm 
up the pigs and the cement too. I have a sleeping floor 



48 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

made of two inch thick planks on one side of the feed- 
ing pens with a board six inches wade along the side to 
keep the bedding in place. The cement floor is easily 
cleaned ; it does not rot and break away nor does it 
offer a harbor for rats as a plank floor is apt to do ; 
the urine and manure are not wasted. In summer the 
coolness of the floor is appreciated by the hogs. It 
should slope enough to carry of¥ water. 

Be careful not to have the floor of the feeding and 
sleeping pen much above the level of the yard, yet it 
ought to be a few inches higher so that the water will 
not run in. Some of my neighbors' runs are way below 
the level of the pen so that the hogs have to scramble 
up like mountain goats to get in. Have a comfortable 
door into the pen so that a man can get in to clean out the 
pens. If you have to climb over every time the pen will 
not get cleaned often. It should be done frequently. 

Have a door between the feeding pen and the lots 
that can be easily shut and opened. Mine slide up and 
down and are worked by a pulley and a rope that ex- 
tend to the entry so that it is not necessary to go into 
the pen to open and shut them. 

There is a per cent, of gain in a good bed for hogs. 
When hogs squeal all night with the cold, or for lack 
of comfort, there is loss. Each squeal represents an 
ear of corn and some of them a big ear. 

When hogs pile up on top of each other they are 
apt to get sick. The under hogs get too hot and are 
sure to catch cold. Either put fewer hogs together or 
have the bed so large and dry that it will not be neces- 
sary for its occupants to fight to get under to keep warm 
or on top to keep dry. However, little bedding is best 



THE PIGGERY, 



49 




PLAN 



for the breeding sow. The new-born pigs get tangled 
in the straw when there is too much, and they get un- 
der it and the sow hes on them. They should always 
be in sight. 

Here is a design for a small, inexpensive house. 
The plan shows the arrangement. It is twelve and 
one-half by eight and one-half feet, 
divided by the low partition P. 
The doors are marked DD. The 
one from the feeding room leads 
out into the yard. The feed trough 
is shown with the chute that 
leads to it. The house is eight and 
one-half feet high in front and five feet in the rear. 
The eaves should project 
a foot or more. The par- 
tition is five feet high at 
the highest part, sloping 
down to six inches. WW . 
are the windows, one and section 

one-half by two feet. The door leading into the yard 
should be two and one-half feet high and two feet 
wide. 

An Ohio man sends me his plan for a combined 
hog house and corn crib shown herewith. Fig. i 
is the floor plan. It is forty feet long and thirty feet 
wide, exclusive of the runways marked FFF in the 
plan. The pens are eight by ten and the entry is ten 
feet wide. The outside runs are as long as you care 
to make them. This house can be lengthened or 
shortened to suit the requirements of the builder 
by leaving off or adding pens to the plan as here 




50 



HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 



shown, A is the driveway entered through either 
end by the sliding doors BB. CCC are the feed 




FIG. I. 

troughs. DDD are the pens connected by doors 
with each other and by the open runs FFFhy doors. 

Fig. 2 shows a cross 
section view. It is 
twenty-four feet from 
the ground to the 
peak of the roof. A is 
the doorway ; BB the 
cement floors ; CCare 
FIG. 2. the feed troughs ; DD 

the swinging doors to protect the troughs while the 
swill is being poured in. The one on the right is 
shown open ; the one on the left, closed. EE are the 
chutes for the corn to come down and EEslyq^ the cribs. 
GG, bins for bran, meal, etc. Fig. 3 is a section 
lengthwise of the house. CC are the feed troughs ; 
DD are the swinging trough doors; EE are the doors 
to the corn crib chutes ; EE shows the lathing for 




THE PIGGERY. 



51 



the crib of one and one-fourth by two inches, lath 
placed three-fourths of an inch apart. HH are 

openings through 
which the corn 
is thrown into 
the crib from the 
wagon in the en- 
try. The cement 
_ floors also form 
the foundation on 
pen will accommo- 




FIG. 3. 

which the building stands. This 
date from ten to twenty brood sows with their pigs, 
and the cribs will hold 2500 bushels of corn. The 
driveway may be used as a shelter for farm imple- 
ments or for a cooking outfit, if desired. This plan 
of a pen, however, is open to one great objection in 
our cold northern states : if one set of pens is placed 
towards the south, the other set necessarily opens to 
the north and are consequently cold and icy. 

The illustration here shown is an adaptation of the 
pen of a leading Wisconsin hog raiser. The floor plan 




is also shown. The house is forty feet long and six- 
teen feet wide, with a front shed and a corn crib at the 
back. The cook room is twelve by sixteen feet. The 



52 



BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 



well is in the shed. BB are doors the height of the 
partition and twenty inches wide hung on hinges. Par- 
titions are three and one-half feet in height. DD are 
doors between the pens which slide up and down as do 
also AA out into the runs. FFslvq fenders made out of 
two by eight plank and set ten inches from the floor to 
protect the little pigs. They should have been shown 
on all sides of the pen. GG are the runs. The end 






CCJBN CBiE> 




PtN 



,ri. .h. - 



rttO CMOTt 



p^N 

O 



,£s^ 



A 



T'll 



Into 



1.11 






WOOD AND • 

WATta onto I 



\E\'-"-<- 



rLCXJR. PLAN- 



fence is permanent and has gates in it at KK. The 
side fences have a driveway in each and the interior 
fences are all movable. The house is seven feet high 
in the clear over the pen and ten feet over the cook 
room. The loft over the pens is used for bedding, which 
is let down into each pen by a little opening in the 
floor above. The loft is reached by a ladder. The 
loft over the cook room is divided into two bins. The 



THE PIGGERY. 53 

grain descends through the feed chute. There is a 
door P between the cook room and shed. The corn 
crib is three feet at the bottom, and four at the top. 
The slats on the outside run up and down. The open- 
ing into the alleyway is a sKding door. As shown 
here the house has four pens, but it can be continued 
on the same general plan until it has twenty. This 
pen is double boarded w^ith wide boards and heavy 
building paper in between. The flue for the stove is 
shown in the cooking room. 

The piggery of a Brattleboro, Vermont, institution 
which cost |8ooo is here shown. There are forty pens 




A MODEL PIGGERY. 

in all, twenty on each side of a central alleyway. The 
pens are eight by thirteen feet with yards eight by 
twelve feet. The entry is twelve and one-half feet wide. 
The building is cemented throughout. In the building 
at the end are the steam boiler and slaughter-house. 
The building accommodates 200 pigs. Six pens near- 
est the steam boiler are heated by steam for farrowing 
sows. All pens slope towards the yard. It has all the 
desirable features, such as sliding doors operated by 
rope and pulleys, ventilation, swinging trough doors to 
keep the pigs away^ while the food is being put in the 



54 HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

troughs, a track through the hallway, etc. Any one 
contemplating building a pen of this character should 
first see this or similar buildings. 

The trough in the model piggery should be so man- 
aged that the hogs have no access to the trough into 
which the swill is being poured. This can be managed 
in several ways ; perhaps the best arrangement is to 
have the swinging partition, as shown in the piggery on 
page 50. This door, which extends the whole width of 
the trough, is hinged at the upper side, allowing it to 
swing backward and forward over the trough. A 
heavy bolt about three feet long, with a handle on the 
upper end, drops down against the inner side of the 
trough when the door is pushed in, thus holding the 
door in place and keeping the pigs away from the trough 
when it is being filled. A sensible plan where hogs 
crowd and push is to provide the 
trough with partitions so that each 
hog has a stall, as shown in the 
illustration. When sows are kept 
in separate pastures and the num- 
!I>^i^^^ ber is large, as it sometimes is in the 
" " " hog raising districts, the manner cf 
getting the food to them with the least possible labor 
is a question worth considering. It is sometimes car- 
ried in buckets, or by a barrel provided with wheels 
and handles which can be wheeled from place to place 
as desired. 

The most satisfactory way in which I have ever 
conveyed swill to hogs in large quantities is with a 
horse and a low sled. If you will try this once I do not 
believe you will ever again carry a bucket or wheel a 




THE PIGGERY. 



55 



barrel, especially if you have any considerable number 
of hogs to feed. 



COMFORTS. 
Keep clean troughs. 

Hogs need clean quarters as much as any domestic animal. 
A pig requires plenty of water in its food but not in its bed. 
Never have the chicken house over the pig pen ; they want a 
place by themselves. 

Shelter from the hot sun in summer and the cold in winter. 
The best summer shelter is a spreading tree. 

A little pains to sun-scald the troughs, if they get sour under 
cover, will pay. If it be damp and 
cloudy scald them out with boiling 
water and feed a few handsful of pow- 
dered charcoal to correct acidity of 
the hogs' stomachs. 

It won't pay to have the little pigs 
run out into the snow until they get 
large and the weather is so warm that 
the snow is leaving. There will be 
nights and mornings when the pen 
doors must be kept closed to hold the ^ 
pigs and all the warmth in the build- ^ 
ing. The swinging doors, shown in ST 
the illustration, have been used by 
some and are said to work well ; I have never tried them. 

Provide the hogs with wallows. The wallow is the hog's bath. 

When he plasters himself with mud he also imprisons lice and 

other vermin, which he rids himself of when he scratches himself 

clean against a tree or a fence stake. The hog will not drink from 

his wallow long after he is provided with 

" ■-*■. pure water conveniently near. Wallows 

L ^J should he drained frequently and quicklime 

'-t' or diluted carbolic acid be thrown in them. 

-H Don't lean over the fence to pour slop 

into the pig's trough. The fighting pigs will 
^''■H--'W^^ cause you to spill a good part of the slop, 
.,^j*_(^v,<';^i and resting your weight on your abdomen 
■"""■' " supported by a rail is not a healthful position. 

Pass a trough through the pen into the other 
gh. And if you nail a board over the top of the first trough, 
the pigs cannot stop it with their noses and waste the slop when 
it is poured in. 





tro-. 



Chapter IX. 



SWILL TUB AND CORN CRIB. 




A pig does not eat merely to live. — Tim's Martha. 

I will now discuss feeding, 
which is the most important detail 
of the business. Breed counts for 
much and management for more, 
but feeding really determines the 
profits. 

The hog is an omnivorous ani- 
mal, with an appetite for almost 
everything, and with ability to turn all kinds of food to 
account. Besides that, the hog can manage to live 
under conditions of the most abject misery, unclean- 
ness and neglect. For centuries he has been regarded 
and treated as a sort of scavenger, and as an animal 
occupying the lowest position in the agricultural 
economy. 

Now, however, things are changing for the better, 
and this despised farm laborer is likely to be better 
bred, better fed and better managed. It is now known 
that money can be saved by selecting the food set 
before the pigs, rather than by the old plan of filling 
them with an ill-assorted compound of stuff passing 
by the name of swill. 



58 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

Another recent change in public opinion on the 
question of swine and pork is shown in the market 
demand for a Hghter and leaner animal than was 
formerly in vogue. The cry for lean meat is growing 
louder. To my ears it sounds like a demand for 
better flavored and more wholesome pork, and it will 
no doubt result in a very largely increased consump- 
tion of this excellent meat — for pork is really good 
meat when not too fat. 

In considering different feeding stuffs for pigs the 
Item of cost must ever come uppermost, and I cannot 
assume to lay down any hard and fast lines. The 
feeding of whole grain, for instance, appears to me to 
be a very wasteful one. It does not pay to produce 
corn and then carry it back to the field in the shape of 
unbroken grains in the manure. It is also true that 
the miller's toll will pay for a great many lost grains 
of corn, while if properly fed the amount of corn in the 
manure can be kept down to a low point. Other 
stockmen may do as they find best, but I shall calcu- 
late my pig rations on the idea that all the food fur- 
nished will be digested, and not passed on to the 
manure pile. I find that if pigs are given time to chew 
their corn properly they swallow but few whole grains. 
It is when they are in a hurry that they bolt it whole. 

The practice of fattening hogs on the undigested 
corn left in the manure of cattle is a very general one, 
and it is not uncommon for pigs to find much food in 
pig manure itself. 

Scattering the corn is one way of making them take 
more time when eating. Yet I rather prefer to have 
all grain ground, except when fattening hogs on corn. 



SWILL TUB AND CORN CRIB. 59 

The dairy wastes are all excellent hog foods. 
Skim-milk heads the list, but is often wasted. Butter- 
milk is of about the same value as skim-milk. Whey 
is of less value, though fattening. 

The wheat waste products, especially the mid- 
dlings and shorts, are deservedly held in high esteem, 
as they are especially rich in muscle-making elements. 

Linseed or flaxseed meal, including both old and 
new process, is very high in muscle-forming ele- 
ments. The cake when ground and fed to stock 
makes excellent food ; it is somewhat laxative in its 
effect. Cottonseed meal, on the other hand, though 
high in its protein, is constipating in effect, and is 
death to hogs fed on it for a few weeks unless allowed 
to ferment twenty-four hours before feeding. 

Corn, in its various forms, including fodder and 
ensilage, is perhaps the most prominent of American 
hog feeds. It is a grand thing in every form, a price- 
less boon to the agricultural public ; but alone it is not 
a perfect food for swine or other stock. It is highly 
carbonaceous ; that is, it is rich in sugar and starch, 
and is limited in its ability to produce lean meat, bone 
or milk. Its function is fattening and heating. When 
balanced with nitrogenous foods, and supplemented 
by any sufficiently bulky provender, it makes a perfect 
food for live stock. It will always have a prominent 
position in American feeding. 

No better practice has yet been suggested than a 
hog diet consisting first of milk, then of grass and 
middlings, and finally of corn. I do not mean that 
these things should be the sole diet of the rapidly 
growing animal, but that they may well serve as a 



6o BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

model of operations. Milk is well suited to building 
up a frame-work. A little grain, like oats, will do 
much good. Grass is an excellent growing food, and 
hogs will do well on it, especially if given a little 
middlings and milk, either once or twice a day. 
Finally, the corn will add the fat very rapidly when 
the pigs are to be made ready for market. 

Vegetables and roots are especially useful for 
their effect upon the digestive system. They are an 
agreeable change in addition to the regular food of 
the hog, and also serve to keep the bowels in good 
order. They have what is termed a cooling effect 
upon the blood, which is equivalent to saying that 
they favor a good action of the liver. Be careful to 
avoid the excessive use of any one thing. 

It is never a mistake to provide large hog pas- 
tures, or else to plant crops like rye, clover, sweet 
corn, turnips, etc., that can be cut for feed. The 
farmer can best determine whether to carry the prov- 
ender to the pigs or the pigs to the provender. 

Opinions differ in regard to the value of silage 
for hogs. There is a vast difference in silage itself. 
When the corn has ears nearly ripe the silage 
makes pretty good hog food, if fed moderately — 
say one pound per day to start with, and three 
pounds or four pounds per day as a maximum 
amount. Some feeders have pushed the amount 
considerably higher. 

Turning hogs upon growing crops, a system 
known as "hogging down" the crops, is wasteful in 
one sense; but if it saves labor, and if the crops so 
treated are speedily turned under by the plow, it may 



SWILL TUB AND CORN CRIB. 6l 

at times be quite justifiable. Clover should be cut 
fine and steamed and meal mixed with it, for the pigs 
to eat it best. Soaking in water and mixing with 
meal does very well. It may be sprinkled with water 
and meal dusted over it and they will relish it. Hogs 
will eat clear clover hay when cut in full blossom and 
well cured. 

Much has been said and written about feeding 
swill sweet or slightly soured — many good feeders 
advocating that swill should be mixed and allowed to 
stand for about twelve hours before feeding. I have 
studied the feeding problem as I never studied any 
other thing, and if there is any good reason founded 
on facts, either from a scientific or common-sense 
standpoint, that goes to prove that swill is rendered 
more digestible or more nutritious by being allowed 
to ferment, I confess I have failed to find it. I give it 
as my belief, founded on actual experience, that swill 
is not only not rendered more digestible or more 
nutritious by fermentation, but is thereby actually ren- 
dered less digestible and less nutritious. It is true 
that many feeders have succeeded, and succeeded well, 
that fed sour swill, but this by no means proves 
that they would not have succeeded better had they 
fed swill without souring. Then, by all means, let 
swill be fed sweet. 

A word about the swill tub or milk vat : Let it be 
kept decently clean by at least occasional scrubbings 
and scaldings. A good plan is to have two. While 
one is in use, let the other be cleaned and stood in the 
sun. It is possible to have the barrel so foul as to be 
a positive menace to the health of the pigs. See to it. 



62 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

Pack the swill barrel so that it cannot freeze. 
This is easily done by boxing it in roughly and pack- 
ing around it closely with chaff, leaves, sawdust or 
charcoal. This packing should not be less than one 
foot on all sides and at the bottom. A heavy top box 
and one which can be quickly opened completes what 
will prove of great profit and comfort to the swine. 

Keep a mixture of salt, ashes and charcoal within 
reach at all times. Keep troughs, quarters and food 
clean. There is not any reason why hogs should be 
more subject to disease than any other farm animals. 
Filth is responsible for four-fifths of the "hog cholera/' 




LEAKAGES. 

Put the hogs in the old pasture and let them 
root up the grubs. 

It costs but half as much to fatten a young 
animal as an old one. 

Prepare a pig for the family roast during the 
first cold weather. 

Pigs large or small can make good use of grass or clover 
in a rack. 

Pigs farrowed when the sow is on grass are always healthy. 
This fact favors both green food and exercise. 

Some farmers dump a load of light woods earth into the pen 
every month, and think it pays. Better turn the pigs out. 

We cannot gratify a hog's ambition to possess the whole 
earth, but we can profitably give him a portion of the soil. 

Skim-milk is by all odds the best basis on which to build up 

a balanced food for little pigs. It is pretty well balanced in itself. 

Give plenty of pure water. Be careful that the hogs have 

all the water they want at night. They are apt to drink heavily 

before going to bed. 



Chapter X. 



FEEDING RATIONS, 




First frame , then fat.— ]o\\n Tucker. 

The arithmetic of hog feeding is 
simple, because the food tables are 
now quite complete and easily ac- 
cessible. All that we need to do is to 
express the best practice in figures, 
and then examine and study the figures, comparing our 
methods with the accepted standards. I often detect 
myself in error. 

The following figures form a portion of the well- 
known feeding standards of Wolff, a German authority. 
These tables are now widely used in the United States: 

GROWING FAT SWINE. 



Age 



2 to 3 months, 50 lbs. 

3 to 5 months, 100 lbs. 

5 to 6 months, 125 lbs. 

6 to 8 months, 170 lbs. 
8 to 12 months, 250 lbs. 



Total 

Organic 

Matter 


Protein 


Carbohy- 
drates 
and Fat 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


2.1 


•38 


1.50 


3-4 


•50 


2.50 


3-9 


•54 


2.96 


4.6 


•58 


3-47 


5-2 


.62 


4-05 



Fuel 
Value 

(Calories) 

3496 
55S0 
6510 
7533 



Growing animals must have a certain proportion 
of nitrogenous food (protein) to carbonaceous food 
(carbohydrates and fat). Otherwise there is a waste 



C4 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

of food and a waste of money. The term nutritive 
ratio is used to express tlie proper proportion. 

In the German tables nere given the nutritive ratio 
will be found simply by dividing the amount of pro- 
tein into the amount of carbohydrates and fat, as the 
carbohydrates and fat are not stated separately, as is 
usually the case. The nutritive ratio in the case of 
pigs two to three months old, in the German tables, 
is about as one to four, and would be written i 14. 
In the case of pigs three to five months old it is just 
I : 5. In the case of pigs eight to twelve months old it 
is one to six and one-half, and would be written 1:6.5. 

This all means that the proportion of nitrogenous 
food (protein) should rapidly decrease as the pig 
grows older. At first a large proportion of protein is 
needed for building up the frame-work and the mus- 
cles, but later the food should be more of the nature 
of sugar and starch ( carbohydrates ) , with less protein. 
Expressed in other words, the young pig needs milk, 
wheat middlings and clover, while the adult needs corn. 

In tables where the carbohydrates and fat are given 
in separate columns it is necessary to multiply the fat 
by 2%, add to carbohydrates, and divide by protein. 
This is because fat is 2^ times as potent as starch and 
sugar in heat-making and fat-producing effects. 

That is the whole story about nutritive ratio. It is 
simple enough. And yet nothing in the whole science 
of feeding live stock is more important than a just 
comprehension of food effects upon the animal system. 

Yet I must frankly say that while the theory of 
nutritive ratio is simple enough, we are still a long 
distance away from exact and final knowledge in the 



FEEDING RATIONS. 



65 



art of feeding and fattening swine. These animals are 
so nearly omnivorous, and so well adapted to all 
kinds of treatment, that they sometimes achieve re- 
sults apparently out of theoretical bounds. They have 
frequently been known to live and apparently thrive on 
both excessively narrow and excessively wide rations, 
but best results never follow unscientific practices. 

A narrow ratio is where the carbohydrates ( sugars 
and starches) are decreased, and a wide ratio is where 
they are increased, as compared to the normal amount 
or proportion of protein. Skim-milk and cottonseed 
meal are illustrations of narrow ratios, and corn and 
silage of wide ratios. The term nutritive ratio may be 
just as properly used in connection with a single 
article of food as with a food compounded of several 
ingredients : 

ILLUSTRATIONS OF NARROW AND WIDE RATIOS. 





Protein 

lbs. 


Carbohy- 
drates 

lbs. 


Fat 
lbs. 


Nutritive 
Ratio 


Skim-milk .... 
Cottonseed meal . 

Corn 

Corn silage .... 


2.94 

37.01 

7.92 

.56 


5-24 
16.52 
66.69 
11.79 


.29 

12.58 

4 28 

■65 


I : 2 

1:12 

i;9 5 

I :23.5 



Of course the same feeding stufT will vary, partic- 
ularly such a thing as silage. The development of the 
ears would make it a more valuable food than when 
cut in an immature state. Skim-milk varies widely in 
composition, as every farmer well knows. 

It is folly on the one hand to feed nothing but 
skim-milk, with its narrow ratio of i : 2, or nothing but 



66 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

corn, with its wide ratio of i : lo or 1:12. Very 
young pigs need the narrow ratio, to build up a frame- 
work, and matured pigs may safely be finished on 
corn ; but the most rapid growth for shotes will evi- 
dently be made on ratios varying from i : 4 up to i : 6. 

It is another matter, even with this knowledge, to 
maintain a perfect balance when so much promiscuous 
food is fed to the hogs, and this is where experience 
and good judgment count for so much. But the 
farmer who grasps the theory of the balanced ration is 
certain in the long run to make cheaper and better 
pork than his less intelligent neighbor who depends 
solely on experience or perhaps on the advice of some- 
body even less competent than himself. 

It is quite possible to have well-fed pigs grow at 
the average rate of a pound per day from birth to the 
age of six or eight months. Governor Hoard is quoted 
as saying that the pig is at the pinnacle of profit at fifty 
pounds or near that point, invariably ; and that each ad- 
ditional pound is slightly more expensive than its prede- 
cessor. Certain it is that young animals are more 
profitably fed than old ones, and that there is a point 
where feeding wholly ceases to pay. It is also true 
that the better the care the better the growth, and the 
less the cost of production. 

The division of labor, which constantly increases 
with civilization and with improved transportation fa- 
cilities, is apparent in the swine business as well as in 
all other industries. Formerly it was the custom in my 
community to breed as well as to raise pigs, but now I 
perceive that many of my neighbors buy more pigs 
than they raise. The pigs come as shotes weighing fifty 



FEEDING RATIONS. 67 

to TOO pounds, remain a few months and go to the mar- 
ket weighing about 200 pounds. Meanwhile they have 
had skim-milk and some grain, mostly home produc- 
tions. They leave some net cash behind them, of 
course. I suppose this merely means that it is cheaper 
to carry the pig to the feed than the feed to the pig, for 
I live in a dairy district, and skim-milk is a by-product. 

I like the sentiment of Prof. Thomas Shaw, of 
Minnesota, when he says that corn is to be fed all the 
way from the weaning period with "prudent modera- 
tion." Of course at the last it may be given with 
freedom, but as referring to the whole life of the hog 
it should not constitute as much as a half of the food. 
Corn is a grand food, but in the pig's middle life the 
ration must be carefully balanced and kept from get- 
ting too wide. 

A good substitute for milk is a mess made of mid- 
dlings and bran in water — two parts of middlings and 
one of bran. The middlings contain some flour, and 
the mixture is greatly relished by the hogs. The nu- 
tritive ratio is about i :4.5. The amount given must 
depend upon the good judgment of the feeder. It is 
well to soak the middlings and bran some hours before 
feeding ; and corn may be added if it is desired to 
make a fatting as well as a growing ration. 

In his new book on Feeds and Feeding, Prof. 
W. A. Henry, of Wisconsin, reduces various foods to 
what is called a grain basis. For instance, six pounds 
of skim-milk, twelve pounds of whey, etc., are con- 
sidered equal to one pound of grain. To make 100 
pounds of pork it requires 293 pounds of grain with 
young pigs as compared to over 500 pounds of grain 



68 HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

with pigs weighing upwards of 300 pounds. Prof. 
Henry's tables emphasize the profit of feeding young 
stoclv. A word of caution about feeding cottonseed 
meal to pigs is necessary, Curtis, while at Texas Ex- 
periment Station, found that sickness appears in from six 
to eight weeks after cottonseed meal is added to their 
ration. He concludes after much study that "there is 
no profit whatever in feeding cottonseed in any form 
or cottonseed meal to hogs of any age." Later a 
Texas hog feeder claimed that by feeding cottonseed 
meal in a swill after fermenting forty-eight hours no 
fatality followed. 

The Texas station has tested this thoroughly the 
past year and concludes that a light feed of cotton- 
seed meal to pigs on pasture may be fed indefinitely, 
but fed in dry lots ; even fermented cottonseed 
meal is not a safe feed. To improve the corn ration 
cottonseed meal may be used safely and profitably 
when fed on pasture or with green feed. The carcasses 
showed less fat and more lean meat, and the flesh 
firmer than when fed on corn only. 



BALANCES. 

Hogs are very fond of sugar beets. 

It is waste to overfeed skim-milk to the pigs. 

Study the difference between a growing ration and a fattening 
ration. 

The hog. Hke man, is omnivorous ; but a balanced ration is 
nevertheless needful. 

Pigs consume two pounds of water with every pound of 
corn, — if they can get the water. 

Strictly corn-fed hogs are apt to be dwarfed, weak and too 
fat. They are unbalanced hogs. 

Vegetables and fruits are always acceptable, especiaily in 
connection with a grain or milk diet. 



Chapter XI. 
RECENT EXPERIMENTS. 




The cheapest kind of experience is other people'' s experi- 
ence. — Tim. 

To say that it does not 
pay to cook food for swine is 
not to say that the farmer's 
boiler has no place in the 
economy of feeding live 
stock. It pays very well, for 
instance, to boil small or 
otherwise waste potatoes in 
A GOOD POLAND CHINA. watcr with bran or middlings 
for the pigs, and to cook a hot mess for them occasion- 
ally, if only for variety ; but unless the heat can be 
furnished very cheaply it will not pay to pursue the 
practice regularly. The Pennsylvania Department of 
Agriculture does not " know of one of the many experi- 
ments in this direction which has been continued any 
great length of time." 

A recent winter experiment at the Indiana station 
in feeding whole corn and whole wheat in connection 
with ten to twelve pounds of separator skim-milk daily 
is of interest. The experiment was conducted with 
four lots of Chester White pigs, of the same age, for 105 
days. The pigs were fed grain morning and night, 
and milk at noon. Those receiving whole corn gained 
1.16 pounds per day, and it required 3.25 pounds of 



70 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

corn (with the milk) to make a pound of pork. Those 
receiving wheat gained 1.02 pounds per day, and it re- 
quired 3.67 pounds of wheat (with the milk) to make a 
pound of pork. It is easy to figure out these rations 
arithmetically, and count the cost. The pigs were 
less than three months old at the beginning of the 
experiment. 

As bearing upon the question of grinding corn or 
feeding it whole, the Wisconsin station found that it 
required 459 pounds of corn-meal or 499 pounds of 
whole corn to make 100 pounds of pork. In each case 
some middlings were used, in order to make a better 
ration. Practical experience favors grinding the cob 
and feeding it with the corn, as compared to feeding 
ground corn alone. 

Pigs are very fond of wheat middlings, and the 
Wisconsin station proved economy in the use of a 
mixture of middlings and corn-meal, as compared to 
either alone. The Maine station showed wheat mid- 
dlings to be far superior to wheat bran for pigs. 

The Alabama station found bran to be an unsuit- 
able food for hogs, when used in large amounts. 

The Wisconsin station proved barley meal to have 
a high value for feeding pigs, but somewhat less than 
corn. Ground oats is superior in feeding value to 
whole oats. Oats fed with corn makes an excellent 
food for pigs. 

In experiments with peas, at the Utah and South 
Dakota stations, this food was found to be superior to 
corn. The Alabama station found corn and cow peas 
to have about equal feeding values, with a superior 
value when combined. 



RECENT EXPERIMENTS. 7I 

The Wisconsin station found a bushel of corn to 
be worth four and one-half bushels of potatoes, the 
potatoes being cooked and fed with corn-meal. 

Experiments at various stations, as summarized by 
Prof. Henry, of Wisconsin, showed that 615 pounds of 
roots would save 100 pounds of grain in fattening pigs. 

The Wisconsin station fed skim-milk and corn- 
meal to separate lots of pigs, giving to each lot all they 
would eat ; also, to other pigs, skim-milk and corn- 
meal mixed. As between skim-milk fed alone and 
corn-meal fed alone, those fed on skim-milk made 
somewhat the larger gain. 

Experience apparently demonstrates the wisdom 
of feeding hard-wood ashes, ground bone, charcoal, 
etc., where the hog diet is of necessity largely corn. 
Pigs thus fed have stronger bones than where they get 
nothing except the corn. Still in the Miami valley 
where they have a limestone soil, and all farmers 
grow their hogs on clover and blue-grass, with corn, 
oats and wheat middlings, it is the custom of the best 
breeders to keep a supply of wood ashes and salt in 
a dry place where the pigs can get them at will. It is 
common to rake up the corn cobs often, and char 
them, and sprinkle over this cob charcoal and ashes a 
little salt. This utilizes the carbon of the cobs, 
keeps the premises tidy and the animals more healthy. 

The hog is such an omnivorous feeder, that even 
in the limestone blue-grass, clover and corn region, 
the hogs crave more ash and carbon and salt than are 
found in the great variety of grains, grasses, fruits, 
nuts and vegetables found by them. The wisdom of 
this practice of the Miami valley breeders and 



72 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

farmers, is supported by Prof. Henry of Wisconsin 
Experiment .Station. He says : "The feeding of bone 
meal or hard-wood ashes to pigs otherwise confined to 
corn-meal diet effected a saving of 23 per cent, 
in the corn required for 100 pounds of gain. We 
further find that by feeding hard-wood ashes 
or bone meal to pigs fed wholly on corn, the strength of 
the thigh bones was about double that of pigs not 
allowed bone meal or ashes." Can we find any 
cheaper supply of bone makers than ashes ? Salt and 
ashes and charcoal are, too, an excellent vermifuge and 
corrective of acidity in the stomach of heavily fed hogs. 

In this chapter I introduce analyses of a number 
of feeding stuffs, arranged in tabular form, for use in 
making up rations. Fuller data will be found in all 
the recent Yearbooks of the U. S. Department of 
Agriculture. The separation of the foods into nitrogen- 
ous and carbonaceous groups is arbitrary, and 
merely offered for convenience, as there is no sharp 
dividing line. Wheat bran, middlings and shorts, for 
instance, though here classed as nitrogenous foods, 
are quite rich in carbonaceous elements also. If these 
tables help emphasize the facts that skim-milk is a 
highly nitrogenous food, and that corn is a highly car- 
bonaceous food, they will be useful. 

Various stations have reported inability to make 
pork on pasture alone ; alfalfa pasture is perhaps an 
exception. 

I think that by and by farmers will all agree that cer- 
tain rules apply to young animals which do not apply 
to older ones, and that summer treatment must be 
different from winter treatment, and that the whole 



RECENT EXPERIMENTS. 
NITROGENOUS FOODS. 



73 



In 100 lbs. of Feeding Stuffs 



Separator skim-milk . 
Set skim-milk . . . . 

Buttermilk 

Wheat bran 

Wheat middlings . . . 
Wheat shorts . . . 
Linseed meal (o. p.) . 
Linseed meal (n. p.) . 

Oatmeal 

Pea meal 

Gluten feed . 
Brewers' grains (wet) 
Brewers' grains (dry) 
Rye bran . . . . . 

Cottonseed meal . . . 

Peanut meal 

Red clover hay . . 

Crimson clover hay . . 
Alfalfa hay . . . . 

Cow pea hay 

Soja bean hay 

Red clover, green . . . 
Alfalfa, green . . 



Dry 


Protein 


Carbo- 


Matter 




hydrates 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


9-4 


2.94 


5-24 


9 


6 


313 


4.69 


9 


9 


3-87 


4.00 


«8 


.s 


12.01 


41-23 


84 





12.79 


53-15 


88 


2 


12.22 


49-98 


qo 


8 


28.76 


32.81 


89 


8 


27.89 


36.36 


92 


I 


11-53 


S2.o6 


89 


5 


16.77 


51-78 


92 


2 


20.40 


43-75 


24 


3 


4.00 


9-37 


91 


I 


14-73 


36.60 


88 


4 


"•45 


50.28 


91 


8 


37.01 


16.52 


89 


3 


42.94 


22.82 


84 


7 


6.58 


35-35 


91 


4 


10.49 


38.13 


91 


6 


10.58 


37-33 


89 


.3 


10.79 


38-40 


88 


7 


10.78 


38.72 


29 2 


3-07 


14.82 


28 


2 


3-89 


11.20 



CARBONACEOUS FOODS. 



Corn-meal 

Corn and cob meal 

Ground corn and oats (eq'l parts) 

Barley meal 

Hominy chops 

Whey 

Corn silage 

Corn fodder, field cured .... 

Corn fodder, green 

Oat fodder, green 

Rye fodder, green 

Timothy, green 

Kentucky blue grass, green . . . 

Hungarian grass, green 

Beets 

Potatoes 

Turnips 

Mangel-wurzels . . 



85.0 


7.01 


84.9 


6.46 


88.1 


7-39 


88.1 


7-36 


88.9 


7-45 


6.6 


.84 


20.9 


•56 


57-8 


2.48 


20.7 


1.10 


37-8 


2.69 


23-4 


2.05 


38-4 


2.28 


34-9 


3.01 


28 9 


1.92 


13.0 


1.21 


21.1 


1.27 


95 


.81 


9-1 


1-03 



65.20 

56.28 

61.20 

62.88 

55-24 
4-74 
11.79 
33-38 
12.08 
22.66 
14.11 
23-71 
19-83 
15-63 
8.84 

15-59 
6.46 

5-65 



74 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

matter may be expressed as follows : Nitrogenous 
foods, like skim-milk or middlings, for all young pigs^ 
both winter and summer ; carbonaceous foods, like 
corn etc., for all animals, at all seasons ; sparingly in 
summer and liberally in winter, and to fattening animals 
lavishly. 

We must work on the scientific basis which the 
nutritive ratio so well suggests. Pig-feeding is better 
understood as the theory of nutritive ratio is better 
comprehended. To know the needed ratio or [""o- 
portion between protein and carbohydrates in foods is 
to use foods economically. 

SLICES OF BACON. 

Give the boy a pig. 

Use roots for hogs in winter. Clover and alfalfa other seasons. 

The pasture must be made more of a factor in the swine 
business. 

It sounds contradictory, but it is good advice to fatten the 
hogs lean. 

Profit is in keeping the pound cost of production well below 
the pound price at selling time. 

Bran makes the hog long; corn-meal makes it broad. Mid- 
dlings are a better food than bran. 

It has been estimated that twelve quarts of skim-milk may be 
converted into one pound of young pork. 

At fattening time a daily bundle of clover with the corn-meal 
will aid digestion and improve the pork. Let the pigs grunt, but 
never let them squeal. 




AGED DUROC JERSEY. 



Chapter XII. 



AN EASTERN CREAMER YMAN'S WAY 




There is nothing more convi^icing than success, but even suc- 
cess can sometimes be improved upon.—}o\\n Tucker. 

Here is experience; actual 
practice as reported by a Penn- 
sylvania creameryman. He 
buys pigs weighing about ico 
pounds each, keeps them sixty 
to ninety days, and sells them 
weighing nearly 200 pounds 
each, on the average. 
The food given them is twenty-four pounds of sour 
skim-milk and six pounds of hominy chops per head 
per day. The cost of the food, which of course varies 
from season to season, is four to five cents per day. 

The gain of weight per animal averages nearly or 
quite one and one-half pounds per day. 

This looks like success ; and the creameryman 
says the profits have been satisfactory. 

When sour skim-milk can be purchased at five 
cents per 100 pounds and hominy chops at |io per ten, 
the daily cost of the ration will be four and one-quarter 
cents. And if pork can be thus made at the rate of 
one and one-half pounds per day, worth five cents per 
pound, the daily gain will be seven and one-half cents, 
leaving a daily net profit of three and one-quarter cents. 
With 125 pigs this would mean a daily net profit of 



76 



BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 



I4.06. To this must be added the value of the manure, 
and from it must be deducted the cost of the labor and 
the item of interest on the money invested. Some al- 
lowance should also be made for accidents and losses ; 
but the above figures are quoted as actual results and 
are presumably correct. 

In the case under consideration the pigs (125 in 
number ) were bought in April and sold in June and July. 

The Analysis of Two Foods is as Follows, the Figures 
Showing Digestible Food Ingredients per 100 Lbs. : 



Fuel 

Value 

(Calories) 



Skim-milk . . 
Hominy chops 



Dry 

Matter 

lbs. 


Protein 
lbs. 


Carbohy- 
drates 
lbs. 


Fat 
lbs. 


94 

88.9 


2.94 
745 


5.24 
55-24 


.29 

6.81 



16,439 
145,345 



Skim-milk varies somewhat in composition. The 
above figures refer to separator milk. 

Hominy chops, meal or feed results from the 
manufacture of hominy, and contains the germ and 
coarse parts of the corn grain. It is quite a different 
food, with much narrower nutritive ratio than corn- 
meal, on account of the removal of the starch in the 
form of hominy. 

A ration made of skim-milk and hominy chops, as 
described, would be expressed in figures as follows : 





Dry 

Matter 

lbs. 


Protein 

lbs. 


Carbohy- 
drates 
lbs. 


Fat 

lbs. 


Fuel 

Value 

(Calories) 


24 lbs. skim-milk . . 
6 lbs. hominy chops 


2.26 
5-33 


•71 
•45 


1.26 
3-31 


.07 
.41 


3,945 
8,721 


Total 


7-59 


1. 16 


4.57 .48 


12,666 



AN EASTERN CREAMER YM AN' S WAY. 77 

Calculating the nutritive ratio in the usual manner 
(multiplying fat by two and one-quarter, adding to car- 
bohydrates, and dividing by the protein) we find that it 
is rather narrower than i : 5, which is nearly correct. 
This is a well-balanced ratio for the pigs when firs\ 
purchased, but is too narrow for the animals when fat, 
as will be seen by comparison with the best feeding 
standards, as explained in Chapter X. 

Assuming that no mistakes have been made in the 
above figures, either in quoting the practice of the 
creameryman or in the deductions which I have 
drawn, the question still remains, "Would there not 
have been an equal gain in weight on a smaller amount 
of food, especially if the pigs were pastured or given 
some bulky ration ? " 

The German tables, in the case of 170-pound hogs, 
call for only 5.2 pounds of organic matter, while this 
feeder gives his pigs 7.59 pounds of organic matter. 
This looks like a waste of food, and if it is a waste of 
food it is a waste of money. 

A careful trial would soon settle the matter, and 
when I attempt to follow this man's plan I shall de- 
crease both the skim-milk and the hominy chops, or 
perhaps only the former. 

A daily allowance of twelve pounds of skim-milk 
and six pounds of hominy chops would have a nutritive 
ratio of about one to six, a good ratio at the finish. 

If the skim-milk were reduced one-half in the latter 
weeks of the fattening operation there would still be an 
abundance of dry matter, protein and fuel value to meet 
the full requirements of the German tables. It would 
stand this way : 



78 



BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 





Dry 

Matter 
lbs. 


Protein 

lbs. 


Carbohy- 
drates 
lbs. 


Fat 
lbs. 


Fuel 

Value 

(Calories) 


12 lbs. skim-milk . . 
6 lbs. hominy chops 


1-13 

5-33 


•35 
•45 


•63 

3 3^- 


•055 
.410 


1.972 
8,721 


Total 


6.46 


.80 


3-94 


•445 


10,693 


Demanded by Ger- 
man standard for 
pis;s weighing 250 
pounds . . 


5.20 


.62 


4-05 




8,686 



In the German tables the carbohydrates and fats 
are grouped together as 4.05 pounds. The sum of 3.94 
pounds of carbohydrates and .445 pound of fat, ex- 
pressed in the same way (with fat multipHed by two 
and one-quarter and added to carbohydrates), would 
be 4.94 pounds. 

I do not mean to advocate a reduction in the 
amount of food as the pigs get older, when I suggest 
that the skim-milk should be cut down, but only to 
point out that some less nitrogenous stuff might be used 
in its place ; some cheap green fodder or corn, for in- 
stance. Every fraction of a cent saved in the daily cost 
of food is of great consequence. 



NIMBLE SIXPENCES. 

Skim-milk is too valuable to be wasted. 

Quickly grown hogs are by all odds the most profitable. 

Methods and feeds must vary with locality, but the principles 
of nutrition are the same in Maine and in California. 

If I were that Eastern creameryman I should just go right 
on making monev as heretofore. But I should put a little bunch 
of shotes in a separate enclosure, and test the German tables. 



Chapter XIII. 



WESTERN PRACTICES. 




" There is a tax on the dog but none on the sow.^^ 

Methods in the West differ somewhat 
as to circumstances and surroundings. 
The plan pursued by the great masses of 
western farmers is to have the pigs far- 
rowed in March or April ; feed both sows 
' and litters together till weaning time. 
During this time, both sow and litter have 
free access to a clover pasture, if possible, 
or in the absence of clover, blue grass 
pasture will answer very well. At weaning time the 
sows are taken away and the pigs are left in their accus- 
tomed quarters, and if they have been taught to eat 
corn and other kmds of feed, they will scarcely notice 
the absence of the sow, and will continue to thrive. 

They are now liberally fed on corn and allowed 
the run of the pasture as before. The more careful 
and progressive farmers feed slops made from mid- 
dlings, but by far the greater number feed nothing 
but corn and grass. This does very well as long as 
the grass lasts, but when the fall and winter season 
comes on, and the hog is compelled to subsist entirely 
on corn, it is no great wonder that he fails to make the 
return for the feed consumed that he should. 



8o BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

But it IS true that the clover field and corn field 
furnish the cheapest feed known in the middle West. 
There it is the custom of progressive farmers to let 
pigs and sows run on clover from May to December, 
and after corn is mature the sows are removed to 
other pasture, and the spring pigs fed corn on the 
clover field. As the clover gets woody about the 
time the corn has passed the milk stage, it is cut up 
and thrown to the shotes, in small quantities at first. 
They eat the soft ears, and then chew up the stalks for 
the saccharine ; and by the lime the stalks are too dry 
for them, they are ready to take the ear corn, and lay 
on flesh as never before. 

The change from clover to new corn is gradual, 
and yet when on full feed of corn, the hogs will be 
seen every day grazing part of the time, thus balanc- 
ing their ration better than we can do by mathe- 
matics. In fact, give the hog a chance to get a variety, 
and with his omnivorous taste he will balance his 
ration better than any station feeder can do for him by 
feeding in a pen or dry lot. The men who have 
trouble with disease after beginning to feed new corn 
are those who have half starved their hogs during the 
summer, and then began to crowd them by heavy feed- 
ing of new corn. We have seen such men throw a 
whole wagon load of corn from the field out to fifty or 
sixty hogs, at onetime, and after that was eaten they 
would haul out another load, and stall them again. Is 
it strange that we hear of hog cholera in early fall, 
more than at other seasons ? 

Pigs farrowed in March or April should go to 
market about Christmas, weighing from 275 to 300 



WESTERN PRACTICES 8r 

pounds. Some may say this is too large a gain for the 
time, but it is not larger than has been made in hun- 
dreds of instances and can be made by any careful 
feeder, with the right kind of stock to begin with. 
This cannot be done with scrub stock and slipshod 
methods ; but it can be done with well-bred stock and 
by careful feeding. 

Another and somewhat out-of-date method, which 
is not wholly without its advantages, is to have the 
pigs farrowed in April, May or June. Allow both sow 
and litter the run of a large pasture (the larger the 
better) and feed but little grain. This compels them 
to take abundant exercise, and beyond question pro- 
duces a hog of greater constitutional vigor than can 




POLAND CHINA SOW, IHRKK VKAKS OLD. A FAVORITE 
WESTERN BREED. 

possibly be produced under the forcing system. A 
western friend, who is an excellent authority, says : 
"In an experience covering a period of thirty years, I 
never had cholera on my farm, and I raised and 
fed annually from 300 to 500 head. I then 



82 



HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 



changed to the forcing system, and the result was I 
had cholera in less than three years after changing 
methods." 

The third method in vogue in the West is that of 
feeding hogs with, or rather after, fattening cattle. In 
the good old times of thirty-five or forty years ago, 
cattle were fed in droves of from loo to 200 head, with 
hogs to clean up the waste. The hogs were bought 
weighing from 100 to 200 pounds and allowed to clean 
up after the cattle for from three to six months, and 
would make a gain of nearly, if not quite, one and 
one-half pounds per day. From one to two hogs were 
allowed to each steer, and it was generally conceded 
that the gain on the cattle would pay for the feed con- 
sumed, leaving the hogs clear profit. 

I doubt if the bacon hog will ever gain much favor 
in the West, for the simple reason that corn alone will 
not produce the so-called bacon hog. He commands 

a higher price than the or- 
dinary hog, and he should, 
as he costs more to produce. 
He has his place, but his 
place is not in the corn 
regions of the West ; let him 
be grown in the Northeastern 
states or in Canada, where 
corn is more costly and where 
wheat bran middlings and 
other foods adapted to the production of this kind of 
meat are more nearly on an equality with corn as 
to price. Let each state or locality adopt the breed 
of hog best suited to the range and varieties of food 




ALL OF A SIZE. 



WESTERN PRACTICES. 83 

most cheaply produced in that particular locality. 

While wheat bran middlings, oats and other kinds 
of feed have their place in making up the best food for 
ho:^s, one thing must never be lost sight of, and that is 
that corn always has and probably always will form the 
great bulk of the hog's ration in the West, for the very 
obvious reason that it is more abundantly and cheaply 
grown than any other of the hog foods. While it is possi- 
ble to import foods and feed them to the hogs at a 
profit, the most profitable hog farming comes from 
feeding the kinds of feed produced in the locality 
where you live. 

The plan of feeding green corn to hogs has been 
more generally practiced, and perhaps more generally 
condemned by agricultural writers, than any other ; 
and yet in the face of all that has been said and writ- 
ten, I have never fed any feed, either home grown or 
imported, with as much satisfaction as I have green 
corn, I have never fed anything that seemed to bring 
about such a marked change for the better. It seems 
to me that I could notice a change in less than three 
days. The hair begins to look glossy, the appetite 
seems to improve, the whole appearance is changed. 
I may not be as skilful a feeder as others, but I am 
sure I have put on as many pounds in thirty days with 
green corn as I ever did in double the time with any 
other kind of feed. 

Now I am aware that I am treading on dangerous 
ground, for all the ills that the hog is heir to or has 
been cursed with (save possibly the rushing down the 
hillside into the sea of the five thousand) have been 
attributed to the feeding of green corn. Many com- 



84 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

paratively able writers claim that it is a never failing 
cause of hog cholera. It is true that many hogs fed on 
green corn have sickened and died while being thus 
fed, but this by no means establishes the fact that the 
green corn was the cause of the disease being con- 
tracted. I am fully convinced that the only analogy 
there is between hog cholera and green corn is the 
fact that more hogs die at the season when green corn 
is fed than at any other. 

But do not allow an unskilled or careless person 
to feed green corn. Let it be commenced very m.od- 
erately and very carefully, and the amount gradually 
increased until the full feed is reached, and I would 
recommend that two weeks be occupied in reaching 
the full ration. Green corn, fed as above indicated, is 
as safe as any feed ; that it is as economical I am not 
prepared to say. I am rather inclined to think it is not. 




SMALL YORKSHIRE. 



Chapter XIV. 



WESTERN VRACTIQ^^— Continued. 




WHICH ONE 
WILL YOU TAKE ? 



There are two methods of 
disposing of thoroughbred hogs 
in the West — private and pubHc 
sales. Ten or fifteen years prior 
to this date, by far the largest part 
of the hogs were sold at private 
sale, which had some features to 
recommend and some to con- 
demn. On the whole, I believe 
the buyer could make a more profitable investment at 
private sale, for the reason that he was more deliberate 
and was not influenced by the excitement common at 
public sales. He had more time to carefully examine 
and had the advantage of seeing the stock in its every- 
day clothes, so to speak. 

There was this disadvantage, however, to the 
buyer. The stock were often culled over quite early 
in the season, so that to get first choice he was com- 
pelled to make his selections before the pigs were fully 
developed, and it often happened that the pig which 
seemed to be best at the time of making the selection 
did not develop into the best animal later on. Then 
the seller was often put to the necessity of entertaining 
many intending purchasers and sold his pigs one or 
two at a time, and in this way got his money in small 



86 HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

sums, which to some is objectionable. Thus it was 
that the pubHc sale was finally inaugurated and of late 
years has become the most popular way of disposing 
of thoroughbred hogs. 

The manner of holding a public sale consists in 
holding the entire crop of pigs, then to advertise and 
sell them in a single day. This has many things in its 
favor, with some objections. Its advantages are that 
all the crop of pigs are held till they are more fully de- 
veloped and the buyers all have an equal chance to 
see and buy the best, if they are willing to pay the 
price. The seller has the advantage of selling all his 
pigs in one day and gets his money in a lump. Then 
he is relieved of the necessity of keeping a boarding 
house, as it were, for three or four months. 

A few years ago the prices at some of the public 
sales were almost beyond belief. In some instances 
a whole herd of fifty or sixty animals has been sold 
at an alleged average of I250 each. However, it was 
generally believed that there was more or less de- 
ception about many of these extreme sales. But there 
were sales known to be perfectly straight and honest 
where hogs had a good record, either as show ani- 
mals, or through extensive advertising, that have aver- 
aged over $200 each. These animals were fashion- 
ably bred and exceptionally fine individuals, and were 
descended from popular sires. The high prices were 
detrimental to the business as has been proven since. 
When the price of breeding animals is lifted beyond 
the reach of enterprising farmers, it is sure to result 
detrimentally to the breeding business. 

The great majority of the sales have been per- 




WESTERN PRACTICES. 87 

fectly honest, and the prices were on a fair business 
basis. There is always some dishonest and crooked 
business along every trade and industry, and the 
breeding business is not an exception ; but this is 
frowned upon by the better class of farmers and 
breeders. There is a good deal of jealousy existing 
between breeders which dates back as far as the 
writer can recollect, at least 
thirty years. There are always 
efforts made to boom by proper 
methods, and sometimes by im- 
proper ones, certain strains of 
hogs ; but the breeding business 
is not different from any other 
line of business, and honest and 
correct methods usually prevail sold. 

in the end, as crooked and wrongful transactions 
will not wear, and later expose themselves. 

In the pedigreed hog business the breeder's pedi- 
gree is looked after as much, almost, as that of the 
pigs, and stock is purchased from a breeder because 
of his known ability as a breeder and his honesty as 
a man. 

The hot-air methods and fictitious prices that 
were obtained a few years ago in public sales, brought 
distrust upon the breeders engaged in it, and resulted 
in putting a large number of them either into bank- 
ruptcy or out of business. 

The public sales at this time are carried on in a 
straightforward and business-like manner, and at 
prices that the farmers are justified in paying. 

About two years ago there was a change in the 



88 



HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 



sentiment of the people for larger size in the breeding 
hogs, and it was so universal that it ran to an extreme, 
where quality was overlooked in securing size ; but 
this has exhausted itself, and now the demand com- 
bines size with quality, which gives an easy feeding, 
large hog. The popular demand had its effect in 
bringing about an improvement in the size of all hogs, 
and the breeding business is now on the most sub- 
stantial and cash basis that we have had for several 
years. The popularity of public sales is greater 
than at any time in the past. There are some good 
breeders who continue to sell all their stock at private 
sale. 




A FAMOUS BERKSHIRE. 



Chapter XV. 
BUTCHERING AND CURING MEATS. 




A use for every product and every product to its best use. 
— Tim's Martha. 

Agriculture is subject to the same 
economic conditions that have so pro- 
foundly affected other industrial pursuits, 
and on farm as well as in factory there is 
a marked tendency toward a further and 
further division of labor. Applying the principle to 
pork production, for instance, it practically costs but 
little more to kill, dress and prepare for market a 
thousand hogs than a hundred hogs, and hence great 
butchering and packing establishments have grown up 
in all the principal cities and railroad towns of the coun- 
try, and the business is becoming centralized. In some 
parts of the United States home butchering will alto- 
gether cease, I suppose, but the farm will ever retain 
a great deal of individuality, and in all districts remote 
from abattoirs the work will be done by individuals, as 
heretofore, for years to come. 

A merciful act at slaughtering time is to stun the 
victim with a blow in the forehead before bleeding. It 
facilitates sticking. To get the opportunity for such a 
blow, the animal must be run into a pen or chute made 
for the purpose. As soon as he drops or is thrown he 



90 HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

must be turned on his back. One person holds the 
hind legs, another, astride of his body, holds his fore 
legs, pressing them backward. The sticker, standing 
in front, presses back his snout with the left hand and 
with the right thrusts in the knife, aiming for the trail. 
The knife should have a blade six or seven inches long, 
and a keen edge at the point. Before making the fatal 
thrust, cut a slit two or three inches long just in front 
of the shoulders, and in withdrawing make a slight cut 
upward to give free vent to the blood. Be quite sure 
that the animal is dead before scalding begins. 

For one or two small animals the old-fashioned 
barrel scalder suffices. But for a pen of hogs of any 
considerable number or weight the modern scalder, 
with fire box underneath and a rack and windlass for 
manipulating the carcass, is indispensable. In many 
communities these scalders are owned by the local 
butcher or by an individual, and are loaned to farmers 
at a certain rate per day. Where this is not the case 
several neighbors could well afford to buy and use one 
in common. They are usually mounted on a two-wheel 
truck that can be attached to another vehicle for easy 
transportation from place to place. 

Many cheap, home-built devices are available for 
hoisting the hogs into the scalding tank, and for after- 
^n^ wards hanging them up, one at 



a time, on the poles prepared 
for them. The accompany- 
^ j ing illustration will explain it- 
^ self. If the scald water is not 
hot enough to lodsen the hair and bristles, an old and 
good way to increase the heat is to drop hot stones into 




BUTCHERING AND CURING MEATS. 



91 



the water. A little air-slacked lime thrown into the 
tank will start the bristles and hasten the operation. 

To dress a hog for market involves the opening of 
the animal along the entire length of the under side 
and the careful removal of the intestines. The oper- 
ation must be so well done that the final effect is 
pleasing and cleanly in appearance. The skin must be 
free from blood stains and the meat without blemish, 
with the fat portions as near to ivory whiteness as 
possible. 

Here is a simple device where few hogs are butch- 
ered, ^ is a bolt pivoting together BBB, three poles 
of equal length. CC are strong hooks 
on which to hang the animal. Hook the 
carcass while lying fiat, then by pushing 
on the other pole the tripod can easily be 
raised to an erect position. One man 
can hang a 500-pound hog in two minutes. 
There are various methods of cutting 
the carcass. The diagram here shown 
illustrates the manner of division for mess pork. In 
this case the head is cut off and the carcass split through 
the back bone. The hams are cut round and shoulders 

square and the 
sides cut across 
into strips, as 
shown. For 
family use, 
mess pork is at a discount in these days. For this rea- 
son it is a common practice now to make as much as 
possible of the fat into lard, and leave only the leanest 
cuts for pork and bacon, and to use the trimmings for 





92 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

sausage and scrapple and other side dishes. The 
division in this case is somewhat different. The carcass 
is split on either side of the spine, leaving a strip four 
inches wide. From this the fat is cut for lard, and the 
lean meat and bone cut into sections make toothsome 
roasting pieces. The bacon is cut into strips four or five 
inches wide along the belly on either side. The thicker 
parts of the sides are cut into pieces nearly square and 
the fat edges cut off and made into lard. The shoulder 
is cut smaller than indicated in diagram and rounded 
off more like a ham, the trimmings being used for lard 
and sausage. In trimming the hams be careful to avoid 
cutting into and mutilating the natural membrane 
covering the lean meat. A smoothly trimmed ham 
looks better and keeps better than one that is rough 
and haggled. 

It is best as a rule to leave the cutting operation 
until the carcass is cooled through and through, but 
heavy hogs will cool faster split down the back, the 
head cut off, and the leaf lard partly separated from 
the sides. 

Much pork can be sold in the winter season in the 
form of the entire carcass, in a fresh state. When it 
comes to salting down the meat great care must be 
taken to have it thoroughly cooled. It must be en- 
tirely chilled through and through, but never put away 
frozen. Do not spare the salt, as the meat will not 
take it up in excess of a certain limit. Pickle should 
never be poured into the swill barrel or where poultry 
or any animal can get it to drink ; the surplus salt may 
be spread over the asparagus bed. 

In curing hams and shoulders be sure to fill in and 



BUTCHERING AND CURING MEATS. 93 

around the bones with salt and a little pepper, to keep 
off the flies. 

For sugar-cured ham and bacon use six pounds of 
coarse or packers' salt, four ounces of saltpetre and from 
four to six pounds of brown sugar to each loo pounds, 
and enough water to cover the meat when closely- 
packed. Boiling and skimming the pickle helps to 
clarify it. Sprinkle a thin layer of salt on the bottom so 
that the meat will not come into direct contact with the 
wood. Put the skin side down and be sure the whole 
contents are covered with the brine. 
At the end of six weeks take up 
the meat and smoke it, using corn 
cobs or hard wood (green hickory- 
is best) ; smoke until it is a light 
brown or tan color. The pieces 
should be sewed up in muslin bags 
and painted with whitewash with a 
little ochre in it for coloring. When prepared in this 
way bacon can be cooked without any freshening and 
it will keep sweet for a year or more. It should be 
stored in a dry and cool place. 

A few people prefer dry curing. This requires 
the salt to be fine and the saltpetre to be pulverized. 
The ingredients are used in about the same propor- 
tion, mixed together. After the meat is trimmed 
and cooled for thirty-six or forty-eight hours, place it 
skin side down on clean table or boards, and rub 
the mixture in thoroughly with the hands. This 
must be repeated three or four times in two weeks, 
leaving a coating of the salt over the surface each 
time. Bacon should be piled in lavers four or five 





94 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

deep. After-treatment is the same as for that salted 
in pickle. 

For making mess or clear pickled pork, use fifteen 
pounds of salt to loo pounds of meat. 
Put a layer of salt in bottom of barrel 
and pack on edge, as shown in cut, 
sprinkling salt between each layer. 
Keep the meat covered with brine. 
If we suppose pork in the carcass to be worth five 
cents a pound, there are many localities where it would 
pay well to work it up and sell it in various forms at 
higher figures. On a five-cent or seven-cent basis for 
the whole animal the bacon should bring ten cents, 
lard ten cents, head-cheese or scrapple ten cents, spare 
ribs ten cents, sausage twelve cents, shoulders twelve 
cents and hams fifteen cents. Of course the difference 
in price represents skill and labor, and it is well to 
convert skill and labor into money in this way when- 
ever possible. Prices vary in different localities, of 
course, but it is everywhere true that the prepared arti- 
cles are worth more per pound than the whole carcass. 
When a ham is half fat, and the cost price is fifteen 
cents a pound, and no one will eat the fat, the ham 
really costs thirty cents a pound, and this makes it a 
very expensive meat. When hogs are fattened lean, 
or with only a reasonable percentage of fat, the meat 
is in every way superior and is in better demand in 
the market. The ideal hog, both as to cost and to 
please the present market, is therefore about as fol- 
lows : 200 pounds, six or ten months old, and 
reasonably lean. 

To try out or render lard so as to get the whitest 



BUTCHERING AND CURING MEATS. 95 

and firmest product it is necessary to remove all flesh, 
membrane and blood, and cut it into pieces an inch or 
less in size ; then heat a small quantity in kettle or 
boiler, and afterward add more and cook slowly. 
When the scraps, cracknels or cracklings are crisp, 
and a delicate shade of brown, strain the melted lard 
through a cloth into the vessel that is to receive it. 
Afterward the scraps may be pressed and an additional 
quantity of only slightly inferior lard obtained. The 
fat from the internal organs and the small miscellaneous 
trimmings should be rendered separately and kept in 
separate vessels. No water should be used during the 
operation ; in fact, the purpose of rendering the lard 
is partly to drive off all the water. 

Excellent sausages may be made of the scraps and 
trimmings of fresh pork by using one-third fat and 
two-thirds lean meat, chopped finely, and seasoned 
with salt, pepper and sage. The seasoning should be 
evenly distributed through the scraps before they are 
chopped. As sage is offensive to some people it may 
be omitted. A little red pepper is often added. Tastes 
differ so much that a sausage receipt cannot be given 
that will suit all. The meat grinders now in common 
use come handy for preparing sausage scraps. For- 
merly the general custom was to soak the small intes- 
tines of the animal and cleanse by scraping thoroughly 
with a dull knife, and use these as cases for holding the 
sausage meat. The meat being pressed into these by 
a " stufTer," they were twisted into links three or four 
inches long. The practice still prevails, but much of 
the meat is now sold in rolls or lumps, wrapped in 
butter paper or corn husks. 



96 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

Scrapple, a pork preparation well known in Penn- 
sylvania, New Jersey and elsewhere, is made some- 
what after the plan of souse and head-cheese, using 
portions of the head, ears, feet, liver, heart, and a part 
of the skin from which the fat has been cut for making 
lard. Not more than a fourth of the liver should be 
used. These scraps are put into sufficient water to 
admit of boiling a long time, at least until all the meat 
can easily be pulled apart by the fingers. It should then 
be dipped from the liquor and run through the cutter. 
When returned again to the boiler it should be thick- 
ened with finely ground corn-meal, seasoned to suit 
the taste, and thoroughly boiled, stirring vigorously all 
the while to prevent scorching. Some prefer to lise 
one-fourth graham flour and three-fourths corn-meal 
for thickening. If the meat contains too much fat this 
may be skimmed off before adding the meal. Enough 
meal should be added to make a stiff mush when cold. 
Pour out while hot into square tins not over four inches 
deep. To prepare for the table, cut in slices and fry 
till brown. 

Souse, made of scraps, especially including the 
feet, the lean meat of the head, etc., is prepared by 
boiling, and then flavoring with salt, pepper and vine- 
gar, whole spices, etc. It becomes quite firm. It is 
browned in the oven for table use. 

Head-cheese is much like souse, but the vinegar 
is replaced with sage, and the fat is pressed out through 
a strainer cloth. Like souse, it may be packed away 
in jars until needed for use. It is made ready for the 
table by browning in a frying pan. 

To corn or pickle a small amount of pork for family 



BUTCHERING AND CURING MEATS. 97 

use prepare a liquid as follows : Take three gallons 
of water, four and one-half pounds of salt, one pound of 
brown sugar and one ounce of saltpetre. Boil for half 
an hour and remove scum. When cold pour it over the 
meat, and allow it to stand for several days. 

There are many methods of pickling pork on a 
large scale, all depending on the preservative effects 
of salt, sugar, saltpetre, etc. The sugar may be re- 
placed with molasses, and the meat may be afterward 
cured by drying or smoking. Every precaution must 
be taken to guard against insect attacks while the 
meat is in a fresh or partly cured condition. Every 
cook book gives a recipe for making pickle for pork, 
and there are as many recipes as there are cook 
books. I will give but one : To loo pounds of meat 
use one pint of fine salt, four pounds of brown sugar 
and three ounces of saltpetre. Rub the meat thor- 
oughly with this mixture, and allow it to lie for a 
day. Then pack in barrels, using additional salt 
freely. Drain the liquor from the bottom of the bar- 
rel and pour over the meat again. The meat should 
not rest upon the bottom of the barrel, but on a frame 
of some sort. After two or three weeks of this treat- 
ment the meat may be packed or smoked. 

To prepare for smoking it is only necessary to 
wash off the brine, roll in bran (some people use saw- 
dust), and hang in the smoke-house for four weeks. 
The house must not be permitted to become over- 
heated. Good smoke is made with hard-wood chips 
and sawdust. 

Hams may be packed in barrels or stored dry. 
The latter is the plan most in favor. One good way 



9S BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

is to cover the hams with brown paper, then with 
coarse musHn, and then to give a coat of whitewash. 
A dark granary is an excellent storage place for hams. 
I have before me a famous cook book which 
makes the sweeping assertion, at the beginning of a 
chapter, that pork is an unwholesome meat ; but ad- 
mits that salt pork, bacon and ham are less objection- 
able than fresh pork. It must be because so many 
pigs are improperly fed and fattened that such state- 
ments are penned and printed, or else it is because 
human beings do not know how to adapt their food to 
their requirements. It is no doubt just as important 
to have a well-balanced ration in case of human food 
as in case of an animal's food, and if man does not 
suit his food to his habits of life he must suffer for it. 
Good pork, properly cooked and temperately eaten, 
is wholesome enough. 



SCRAPPLE. 

Ham half fat is too fat. 

Fatten is a poor word. Grow is better. 

Wholesome pork is digestible pork. Make it so. 

Be merciful even toward a pig about to be killed. 

Save the bladders. They make air-tight jar covers. 

Save the bristles ; everything has some money value. 

Head-cheese or scrapple is an excellent food when well made. 

An unbalanced ration means wasted money, and perhaps infe- 
rior meat. 

Extra quality bacon and hams rank among fancy groceries, 
and are ever in demand at top prices. 

There are laws in some states against the sale of boar pork 
at current prices without explaining its character. 

Wisely fed and fattened, cleanly, home-grown and home- 
cured pork is a deal better than the average market product. 
Depend on that. 



Chapter XVL 

SMITHFIELD HAMS AND DEERFOOT 
SAUSAGE. 




Not how much but how good. — Martha. 

The celebrated Smithfield ham 
is so called from the little town of 
Smithfield, about thirty miles from 
Norfolk, Va. They have been cured 
there for nearly a century and their 
fame has spread at home and abroad. 
About 30,000 hams are now produced annually and 
are mostly sold direct to private families, some going 
to Europe. They are made from the half wild " razor- 
back " pigs, which for a portion of the year run in 
the woods, thereby giving to the meat a gamy flavor 
not to be obtained in any other way. Many farmers 
are engaged in raising the hogs, but the killing and 
curing is in the hands of a few men in or near Smith- 
field. Many attempts have been made to " improve " 
the native breed of pigs by crossing, but in every case 
unsuccessfully, as it has resulted in a coarser grain 
to the meat, and the shape of the ham is not the 
same. The native ** razor-backs " are thin-sided, 
deep-chested, with small flanks and long sloping hams. 
They are all colors. The sows run at large in the 



lOO BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

woods and farrow about the middle of April. They 
live on the nuts, roots and berries they find in tlie 
woods. In the fall, after the corn, sweet potatoes and 
peanuts are gathereo, they are turned into the fieldj 
and begin to pick up rapidly on what has been left. 
They are then put in pens and fattened quickly by 
giving them all the corn they will eat and pure water 
to drink. They are kept clean and are killed when not 
too fat nor too lean, weighing from 125 to 190 pounds. 
They are carefully slaughtered, the hams being the 
first consideration. The curing is as follows : The 
hams are first placed in large trays of fine Liverpool 
salt. Then the flesh side is sprinkled with crude salt- 
petre, using three or four pounds to 1000 pounds of 
ham. The whole surface is then covered at once with 
fine Liverpool salt. The hams are next placed in piles 
not more than three feet high, and let stand for three 
days. Each ham is then resalted with fine salt and 
piled again, one day for each pound in each ham ; a ten- 
pound ham thus stands for ten days. At the end of 
this time they are washed with tepid water until the 
hams are clean, and when nearly dry rubbed with fine 
ground black pepper. They are then smoked slowly 
and gradually for from thirty to forty days, using green 
red oak or hickory. The hams are then repeppered to 
guard against vermin and are bagged. The average 
weight per ham is about ten pounds. These hams sell 
for an average of twenty-two cents per pound at Smith- 
field. The remaining parts of the hog are cured in the 
same way and are largely consumed at home. 

I believe there is no reason why with much the 
same care and close attention to details, the same 



SMITHFIELD HAMS AND DEERFOOT SAUSAGE. lOI 

results could not be achieved in other parts of the 
South where nearly similar conditions exist. 

I visited not long ago the celebrated Deerfoot 
Farm at Southboro, Mass., whose hog products have an 
extended reputation and where they have no trouble in 
selling their hog products, and at an advanced price. 
Here some hundreds are slaughtered annually, and 
between the first of October and April the call for 
more is unremitting. Bacon, lard and sausage are the 
only outputs. Hams and shoulders find their way to 
market only in this form. Why ? " Because our Deer- 
foot sausage brings more than any ham," said the gen- 
tlemanly foreman. "You see our links are a trifle 
longer and slimmer than other sausage. It is all made 
after one receipt, also every ingredient being propor- 
tioned by weight, so every lot tastes the same as that 
eaten before by our customers. We make it regularly, 
so that it goes to consumers new and fresh. One lot 
is not too salty nor another lacking salt. As a result, 
those who eat Deerfoot sausage or bacon find nothing 
else so satisfactory." 

The sausage is wrapped neatly in parchment paper 
and tied, always the same, in one and two-pound pack- 
ages. A two-pound package sells for fifty cents. The 
bacon is sliced and packed in pasteboard boxes, sell- 
ing for sixty cents for the two-pound package. Upon 
each wrapper is printed the name of the farm and a 
few sentences that guarantee the quality, both as to 
flavor and healthfulness. Young pigs only are used, 
and if any are bought, — and some are bought, — the 
producers being engaged in advance to rear them for 
Deerfoot at an extra price, they must be reared within 



I02 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

one day's ride of the farm and strictly farm fed, not 
fed upon refuse from cities nor at slaughter-houses 
and breweries. 




A GOOD BERKSHIRE — THE DEERFOOT KIND. 

The delicious meat of the small-boned Berkshire 
and Berkshire grade is used. The heads, feet and skin 
all go to a cheaper market in bulk at low price. Deer- 
foot bacon is all dry-cured on the English plan and 
hung for five days in the smoke of hickory wood cut 
fresh every week from the forests of the farm. All lard 
is rendered faithfully and never bleached artificially. 1 1 
is placed, not in a cellar nor in a cooler, but exposed to 
the light in cases covered with wire fly net and aired 
thoroughly while bleaching. 



Chapter XVII. 



MARKET POINTS. 




The hog is a machine for converthig golden corn into golden 
coin. — ^John Tucker. 

In previous chapters I have in- 
troduced statements and facts which 
might have been reserved for this talk 
about markets, and shall here per- 
haps mention matters which might 
as well have been treated elsewhere. 
The truth is that every detail of the 
art of swine husbandry is so intimately associated with 
every other detail that it is quite impossible to consider 
each separately. Marketing, the final detail, may be 
called the sum total of the other details. 

The profit in pigs depends very largely upon the 
age at which they are sold. The case was put forcibly 
by a trial in the \yest some time ago, when a cash ex- 
periment was made with fifty-four Duroc Jersey pigs. 
The average birthday of these pigs was April 15th. 
Their average weight, when weaned at two and a half 
months old, was forty-one pounds. 

At eight months old their average live weight was 
210 pounds, at a cost for feed and labor of I1.62 per 100 
pounds. 

At nine months old and three days their average 
weight was 247 >^ pounds, at a cost of %\.^o per 100 
pounds. 



I04 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

At eleven months their average weight was 293 
pounds, at a cost of $2 per 100 pounds. 

Increase of weight was made at a continued in- 
crease of cost per pound. The pound cost in the three 
cases was 1.62 cents, 1.80 cents and two cents. The 
heaviest pigs, that is those longest fed, are therefore not 
the most profitable. 

In the above case the growing pigs did not have 
much grass and clover in their pasture. A greater 
abundance of green food would perhaps have made a 
slight change in the figures, but the principle would 
have remained the same. The experiment is valuable 
because conducted on a large scale. 

The day of profit in holding hogs for the block until 
eighteen months old is evidently past, never to return. 
If we had close commercial relations with the Esqui- 
maux we might feed for fat alone, but our markets, both 
domestic and foreign, unquestionably demand leaner 
animals and a better quality of pork. It is possible to 
rear pigs so as to have seventy-five per cent, of lean 
meat in them. It depends principally on feed and exer- 
cise. If such pigs are demanded we must furnish them. 

If pig meat is to take the place of hog meat, let it 
be so. With pigs, as with many other crops, there is 
much in knowing when to harvest. The animals must 
not be allowed to get too ripe. They must be sold 
when they will command the most money. 

I think it is a good plan to have two lots of summer 
pigs ; one lot to go on the market when the animals 
weigh about 100 pounds, at a time when pork is often 
high, and the other lot to be sold later, say when about 
200 pounds in weight. 



MARKET POINTS. 



105 



There is certainly an increasing demand for small 
hams, from pigs less than a year old, and it is obviously 
cheaper to produce two fifteen-pound hams than one 
thirty-pound ham. There is also an increasing demand 
for good bacon. 

In many places there is a call for choice lard, at 
rates above market prices. Why not supply such lard ? 
Clover-fed hogs will yield the product, and if put up in 




ESSEX sow, TWO YEARS OLD. ONE OF THE SMALLER BREEDS. 

pails holding from five to twenty-five pounds, extra 
prime lard will sell above current rates. 

Many pork products, viewed from the standpoint 
of a city consumer, are on the border line between 
wholesome and unwholesome foods. Poorly prepared 
or over-fat bacon, sausage, scrapple, head-cheese, etc., 
are voted down, while the same products from leaner 
animals, if skilfully prepared for market, find ready 
buyers. The less people dwell in the open air the less 
fat they can digest, and it must not be forgotten that 



Io6 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

city, town and village people consume and hence reg- 
ulate the demand for a very large percentage of all the 
pork sent to market by American farmers. 

Ham is a standard food in this country, and is freely 
eaten even by people who proclaim their inability to 
digest pork. Choice hams are always in demand at 
the highest prices paid for any portion of the hog's 
carcass. 

In the present condition of the market I shall allow 
none of my hogs to get much above 200 pounds in 
weight, except for special or temporary reasons. ^ 

We are getting along pretty well, as a people, in 
learning how to produce things. We are not slow about 
accepting the discoveries of science, and are ever ready 
to harness nature's forces and put them to work in our 
everyday affairs. But the Government is beginning to 
recognize that another great national problem is before 
us. "The rapid development of the agricultural re- 
sources of the United States," says the U. S. Yearbook 
for 1S96, " has resulted in an annual production far in 
excess of the consuming capacity of our population. 
To such a degree has the surplus increased that its dis- 
posal is fast becoming a grave problem. The logical 
solution lies in the extension of our markets beyond the 
sea." The same volume elsewhere says that these 
conditions justify the Department cf Agriculture in 
placing before American farmers as many facts and 
figures relative to markets as it is possible to obtain. 

My opinion is that while farmers need in no way 
feel alarmed by the outlook, they should realize that 
quality more than quantity will be the determining 
factor in pork prices and profits during the next 



MARKET POINTS. I07 

decade. The farmer must suit the market, and fortu- 
nately the market calls for younger pork. 

The Government tells us that "each year limited 
quantities of English bacon are shipped uninspected to 
New York and Boston grocers, who retail it at high 
figures to fastidious customers. It is considered a 
luxury at some American breakfast tables," etc. The 
same authority, our Secretary of Agriculture, says that 
American packers can only obtain and hold English 
and other European bacon nlarkets by specially pre- 
paring their meats to suit the taste and demands of 
those markets. Smaller and leaner swine for bacon 
purposes are called for in nearly all foreign markets. 
And the meat must be mildly cured. But in Mexico 
and some of the South and Central American states 
the heaviest, fattest and thickest sides arc required. 

In the Yearbook for the following year, the new- 
est one at this writing, the Secretary of Agriculture 
says : " Our bacon sells for less money in the English 
market than that of any other country. The reason 
for this is found in its over-fatness and saltness. * * * 
American hams are held in higher estimation than 
bacon and hold their own in competition with all 
other countries, so that in quantities shipped and 
in prices hams and pickled pork from the United 
States are equal to the same products from other 
countries." 

Great Britain takes five-eighths of our hog prod- 
uct exports, and pays the United States over I50, coo, coo 
per year for bacon, hams, fresh and pickled pork, 
and lard. Her trade is worth having, and the Ameri- 
can pork packer may well try to please English 



IC8 HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

tastes. Denmark is one of our keenest competitors in 
the line of bacon. 

But though the foreign market is great, the home 
market for American pork is many fold greater, and 
it is in the home market that careful swine breeders 
must look for best returns, particularly with choice 
products, as I have already indicated. 

Summing up the whole situation, from the cash 
standpoint, it is therefore evident that profits depend 
for the most part on economy of production. The 
quality of pork must be the best, yet there can be no 
food wasted in making it. Neither must any waste of 
the manure be permitted, for in many cases the real 
profits on the manure are fully as large as on the pork 
itself. Neither can farmers afford any losses through 
avoidable sickness among the hogs, for disease is 
excessively expensive. 

Only the best methods will yield satisfactory re- 
sults, and while I have my own choice as to breed of 
swine I think it is more a question of management than 
breed. It will no doubt sound presumptuous, but I 
cannot withhold the opinion that many of us are very 
wasteful of skim-milk and corn-meal in our ordinary 
feeding operations, by reason of our sluggishness in 
grasping the full significance of the idea of a properly 
balanced food ration. It is in reduced cost that we 
must look for increased profit. 

On various occasions I have urged the selling of 
farm products in small packages in choice forms to 
particular people, and to learn the standing of the pig 
in really polite and select society I called the other 
day at a Chestnut street grocery store. The hog was 



MARKET POINTS. 



109 




there, but in the form of bacon, ham and sausage ; 

not as pork. 

I found ham in tin boxes, packed in Chicago, 

weigliing eighteen ounces to the 

box. The price was twenty-five ^X1^^ 

cents. The weight of the tin box 

itself was six ounces, leaving twelve 

ounces of ham. The consumer 

therefore pays a little over two 

cents an ounce for the ham, and 

seems willing to do so. Not only 

is the meat in an imperishable condition, but it is free 

from bone. 

For a tin box of imported German sausage 

(Frankfurter) I paid thirty-five cents. This package 

had a gross weight of twenty ounces. The tin can 

weighed four ounces, leaving just a pound of sausage. 

This sausage contained, I was told, two parts of pork 
to one of veal. It was finely flavored, slightly smoked, 
packed in skins, and in perfect condition when the 
can was opened. This brand is regarded as a great 
delicacy. 

There are scores of other pork products on the 
market, and I cannot pretend to enumerate them. 
Those in tin may be had at any time of year, while 
those packed in paper or pasteboard are of course 
limited to the cooler months. 

I think there is room for individual enterprise in 
the manufacture and preparation of special brands of 
ham, shoulder, bacon, lard and sausage for the fancy 
retail trade of every large city. In some respects 
the great packing houses have the advantage over 



no HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

individual operators, but it must not be forgotten that 
the man who fattens his own hogs (if he does the work 
properly) has an opportunity to make better pork than 
the average on the market. 

So I repeat that I am greatly in favor of individual 
effort in the production of really choice food products. 
There is always a premium on such products. There 
are many buyers whose first question refers to quality 
rather than to quantity or price, and these buyers con- 
stitute what is known as the fancy trade. Cannot my 
readers get a share of that trade ? 



COINS. 

There is a decreasing demand for overfat hogs. 

If light-weight hogs pay best in money, why do you raise 
heavy porkers ? 

Put the hogs on the platform scales occasionally. You will 
learn something. 

Watch the markets. Notice the ever-increasing demand for 
good goods in small parcels. 

The pork market is often temporarily depressed, but it will 
never fail entirely. Pork is one of the standard foods. 

England is the greatest foreign buyer of American hogs. It is 
therefore worth while to recognize English ideas about bacon. 

Profit comes nt t in how little we can keep the pig on but how 
much we can get him to eat of a balanced ration. 

If figures are to be believed, it costs all the way f'-om one and 
one-half cents to seven cents or more to produce a pound of pork. 

Market some of the young pigs for roasters when thev will 
dress twelve to fifteen pounds. City people will be glad to get 
them. 

The younger the animal the more thoroughlv it digests its 
food, therefore mature pigs early. The six months '200 pound pig 
costs one-half the 200 pound eighteen months pig. 



Chapter XV 111. 



THE POOR MAN'S PIG. 




A pig may increase a pound in weight every day, and a pound 
of pork per day is enough for a family. — Tim. 

The man who keeps one, two 
or three pigs usually has a differ- 
ent problem to solve from the 
farmer with a larger number of 
animals, for in one case the pigs 
are fed upon swill and refuse, 
while in the other case they are 
pastured or fed upon products of 
the farm which might otherwise 
be sold. The man with one pig saves wastage. 

The one-pig man must first consider the food sup- 
ply. Very often the refuse from the family table, 
especially if one or two cows are kept, will be nearly 
sufficient. In such cases a so-called swill barrel is 
made the receptacle for every sort of refuse food ma- 
terial, often including the dish water. 

Swill is a proper pig food, if not allowed to become 
stale and foul, especially if balanced as to contents 
with middlings or corn-meal, as the case may require. 
If the swill be mostly milk, a little corn-meal should be 
used regularly. If ic be mostly water, food scraps, 
fruits and vegetables, there should be some middlings 



112 HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

added to it, to make it more nutritious during the 
growing period of the pig. 

As to the use of dish water, people must do as 
they please. I prefer to use it for fertilizing purposes, 
on sod, as its soapy constituents cannot have much real 
food value. Fresh clean water is better for the hogs. 
If the dishes are carefully cleaned before being washed 
the dish water will contain but small traces of food. 

The pig pen for one should be movable, so as to 
be easily and thoroughly cleaned. It should not be a 
rat harbor. It should afford warm and dry shelter to 
the pig. And, finally, it should be built with the idea 
of saving all the manure that is produced. 

It is not necessary to construct a costly building. 
Posts may be lightly planted, with a view to the future 
shifting of the house and the pen, and the ground given 
to the pig one year may next year be plowed or spaded 
up and planted with vegetables. 

No elaborate care of the manure is necessary, but 
if it be daily or frequently scraped up and put under 
the temporary shelter afforded by a few boards it will 
be found to accumulate very rapidly ; and being 
mixed somewhat with soil it will be in excellent order 
for preser\-ation. In feeding try a little bone meal, in 
a box separate from the feeding-trough. If the bone 
meal fails to satisfy the animal's craving for bone- 
making food (if such be the object in rooting) try 
wheat middlings. Possibh' charcoal and salt will quiet 
the pig. Try these several things before using the half- 
cruel ring. 

The shed need not be expensive. The floor should 
lift out bodily, which will make it easy to hunt the rats 



THE POOR MAN'S PIG. II3 

and to move the building. The house itself may easily 
be made in sections, to be taken apart at pleasure. 
Three sides of the house should be tight and the other 
side open, but so arranged as, to be closed or partly 
closed during cool or cold weather. The trough and 
swill dump may be temporarily secured by stout stakes, 
and everything made as satisfactory as though the quar- 
ters were intended to be permanent. This is the way 
to have clean, healthy pigs, and it will pay every time. 

A little bedding is good, even in mild weather, 
for it is only in midsummer that our nights are really 
warm, and a shivering pig is not a growing pig. The 
animal must be comfortable as well as clean in order 
to do its best. 

It costs but little to indulge in the luxury of two 
swill barrels, and to keep one of them always empty 
and sweet. In practice I never could get one barrel 
emptied and scalded at regular intervals without wast- 
ing food, but now it is a simple matter to keep things 
reasonably clean. Besides, it is a comfort to always 
know that there are no germs of any kind more than a 
week old in the swill barrel. Disease germs cannot 
withstand frequent changes. It is only in neglected 
places that they flourish. Sunshine is hostile to all 
disease germs. 

Shade, pure water and green food are essentials 
to the most rapid growth of penned pigs. Each of 
these items counts for much, and yet each is often neg- 
lected. Some people never give their pigs pure 
water to drink, compelling them to rely wholly upon 
the not too savory swill ; and the mistake of withhold- 
ing green food is almost as common. The argument 



114 



BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 



that pigs live and grow under such treatment is no 
proof that they would not do better under the wiser 
way suggested. 

I think that much milk is lost simply in quenching 
thirst ; thirst that could as well be appeased with 
water. But when people have the milk to dispose of 
as a by-product, and do not know how else to use it, 
I suppose they will continue to pour it into the trough 
in excess of the digestive powers of the pig. It is quite 
important, however, that the owner of even a few pigs 
should be made aware of the real digestive require- 
ments of the animals 
under his care. 

This information 
is briefly tabulated in 
the chapter on feed- 
ing, and here I will 
merely say that a loo- 
pound hog requires 
only 3.4 pounds of 
organic matter (water 
free ) per day. This 
amount of organic matter would be contained in 
twelve pounds of skim-milk and three pounds of 
corn-meal. Such a ration would be suited to a pig 
somewhat above 100 pounds in weight. 

Swill made of house scraps is probably as rich in 
food elements, on the average, as a mixture of skim- 
milk and corn-meal in the proportion just suggested. 
As to the merits of salt, charcoal, bone meal, 
dried blood, offal meat, etc. , for pig feeds, there are dif- 
ferent opinions and practices. Swill-fed animals which 




OUT FOR A LITTLE WAYSIDE PASTURE 



THE POOR MAX'S PIG. II5 

receive the broken bits of human food get a good deal 
of salt in that way. Mixed salt and charcoal is some- 
times a useful condiment or appetizer, especially where 
the hog's ration has not been perfectly balanced, and 
where by reason of restricted quarters it cannot 
search for food adapted to its cravings. Ground bone 
and dried blood are sometimes of great use as side 
dishes (not in the trough) to afford needed nitrogen 
and phosphoric acid ; in other words, to supply mus- 
cle and bone-forming materials where the diet has 
been too largely of corn or other carbonaceous food. 
Offal meat of any kind has no right place in the pig 
pen, and is distinctly liable to cause disease. Such 
meat, including entrails of butchered animals, dead 
chickens and rats, should always be buried or com- 
posted. The soil is the true place for them, for they 
contain much fertilizing value. 

When pigs which are kept alone, under good 
treatment, fail to make rapid growth it is because of 
improper nutrition, and the swill should be supple- 
mented either with wheat middlings, or whatever 
nitrogenous food may be cheapest. A very small 
amount of cottonseed meal, a few ounces only per 
week, may be given to a pig which has not sufficient 
nitrogenous food to make rapid growth ; but wheat 
middlings would perhaps be better and safer. 

When it comes to finishing the home-raised 
porker, and making ready for the block, we have 
nothing in America superior to corn ; and corn should 
be fed freely for several weeks before killing. Indeed, 
if the swill diet can be wholly replaced for a month be- 
fore slaughtering time by a diet of corn, it will do 



lib BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

much toward rounding the hog out, increasing the 
weight, and adding to the firmness of the flesh. 

The taste and skill of the owner must determine 
how best to put on the finishing touches — whether to 
seek for additional fat by heavy feeding of corn or 
only to seek for a little more plumpness to a hog 
already in good condition. There is a general belief 
that corn has a decided influence in improving and 
sweetening the pork, and it is very common to finish 
the feeding in the way suggested, though many feed- 
ers give some swill even to the last. 

Butchering in one-hog establishments is some- 
times done in the old-fashioned way, with every detail 
performed at home ; but now-a-days, in the Eastern 
states, it is perhaps more common to send the animal 
to a slaughter-house and pay a dollar for having it 
killed and dressed. 



SCRAPS WORTH SAVING. 

A dry shed and a dry bed. 

Feed only what will be eaten up clean. 

Water is the cheapest element of pork. 

Leaves make good bedding, but straw is better. 

A squealing pig is cold, hungry or uncomfortable. 

Spare no trouble to start with good juveniles. It is half the 
battle. 

Remember: $12 worth of manure for each pig per year, if 
not wasted. 

If a hog's manure is worth |i2 per year, as estimated by 
U. S. bulletins, it amounts to just a dollar a month. Do you get 
such a dividend ? 

Lice multiply in muggy weather, amid unclean surround- 
ings. Receive them with lard scented with kerosene or tobacco. 
Then clean the pen carefully and use fresh bedding. 



Chapter XIX. 



THE MANURE PILE. 




Half the hoz manure is lost and the other half is too often 
neglected. — ^John Tucker. 

More than once in the pre- 
vious pages have I referred to the 
fact tliat a recent estimate places a 
value of |i2 on the yearly manure 
product of a hog. The average 
YORKSHIRE BOAR. of each horsc is estimated at I27, 
for each head of cattle I19, for each hog ^12, and for 
each sheep $2. 

The manure value seems almost incredibly large, 
for what farmer with ten hogs counts on getting $120 
worth of manure from them each year ? Indeed, what 
farmer clears |i2 per head on his pork, above the cost 
of feeding > We often hear of profitable pork-fatten- 
ing operations, but much less is said about the hog 
manure or its cash value. Perhaps there is no better 
way of showing the value of the pig-pen pr jduct than 
by comparing it with the product of the cow stable. 





Water 
per cent. 


Nitrogen 
per cent. 


Phosphoric 
Acid per cent. 


Potash 
per cent. 


Value 
per Ton 


Cow manure . . . 
Pig manure . . . 


75-25 

74- 1.-? 


.426 
.840 


.290 
.390 


.440 
.320 


$2.02 
3-29 



Pig manure, however, is variable ni composition, 



118 



BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 



due to the mixed nature of the food supplied to this 
animal, but is generally rich, although containing a 
high percentage of water. It generates little heat in 
decomposing. 

The urine is valuable, but not so valuable as the 
manure itself. This is exceptional, as with other do- 
mestic animals the reverse is true. Still, hog urine 
should be carefully saved along with the other. 

The argument will of course be advanced by busy 
people that it does not pay in money to expend so 
much time and labor in the hog yard as would be in- 
volved in the daily collection of all the droppings and 
in saving the urine. 

The answer is that such collection should be auto- 
matic, as much as possi- 
ble. Manure dropped in 
large yards or pastures is 
j not lost, as it finds its way 
directly to the soil, and 
will exercise a whole- 
some influence as a fer- 
tilizer. The pig pen 
and buildings should be 
WESTERN HERD OF JERSEY REDS, shifted froui timc to time, 
so that the highly enriched location occupied by ^he 
pigs will in turn come under the plow. 

Drainage should be carefully attended to, so that 
all leach ings will flow over sod, or over garden or field 
soil. Little or nothing will be lost if these precautions 
are observed. 

The bulk of the manure, including all which is 
made in the shed and all which can be easily scooped 




THE MANURE PILE. II9 

up in the yard or pen, containing more or less litter, 
should be most carefully accumulated, either by storage 
under a shed, or by building it into a compact heap, or 
by frequent removal to field or garden, to be spread 
whenever convenient. 

Hog manure is a heavy product and quite hard to 
handle on account of its weight, and hence the work of 
caring for it is expensive. I know that labor can be 
ill spared on the farm for anything except the neces- 
saries, but I come back to the point of beginning and 
urge that it is necessary to take care of a product worth 
|i2 per year per animal. 

Do anything with hog manure except waste it. 

The common practice is to allow the manure to 
accumulate under the hogs, layer by layer, and to haul 
it out only once or twice a year. This practice is not 
a bad one under some circumstances. If the pig pen 
is surrounded by a solid stone wall, so that no water 
except rain can enter, and no leachings can escape, and 
if there is plenty of litter to be worked up, it may be a 
good plan to allow the manure to thus accumulate. 
But I always fear the contamination of some near-by 
well of drinking water, to say nothing of the injury sus- 
tained by pigs compelled to perpetually breathe the 
products of fermentation and to lie down upon couches 
that are always mouldy and often wet. Such manure 
beds, with pigs upon them, often occupy the basements 
of barns. 

It is time to regard the pig as a clean rather than 
as an unclean animal ; and I think tne markets will 
compel this change of treatment, for cleanliness is di- 
rectly in the line of choice pork products. 



I20 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

It is some labor to make a stack of hog manure, 
to scatter plaster upon it, and to put it into neat 
shape. But it probably pays well. I have personally 
done it with satisfactory results ; certainly with the 
result of having more and better manure than when 
the operation was forgotten or neglected. 

Taking the fertilizing value of equal weights of 
manure in its natural condition, farm animals probably 
stand in the following order : Poultry, sheep, pigs, 
horses, cows. 

GAINS. 

Be jealous guardians of all manure made on the farm. 

Hogs drop most manure quite near their feeding places. 

The hog loves a bath, but what benefit is a bath in liquid mud ? 

Hog pens should not be on steep places ; too much manure is 
lost. 

Clean the pen twice a week, and be surprised by the size of 
the accumulated heap. 

The dung of hogs should never be in pellets, as such a condi- 
tion indicates constipation. 



Chapter XX. 
HOG CHOLERA. 




In hog cholera an ounce of prevention is worth ten pounds 
of cure. — Tim. 

More has been spoken and 
written on the subject of hog 
cholera than upon any other one 
subject connected with hogs. It 
has ever been a fruitful source for 
discussion at farmers' institutes 
and an endless theme on which to 
write. The Government has ap- 
THK BARS THAT KEEP propriatcd large sums of money 
HOG CHOLERA OUT. ^^^ j^^g cuiployed learned men 

who have labored with seeming diligence for years, and 
yet after all these years of waiting and all this expendi- 
ture of money we are forced to admit, whether humili- 
ating or not, that we know but very little that is of 
practical benefit about the whole matter. 

But two things are absolutely known about the 
disease. One is that it sweeps unrestrained over vast 
areas of country, leaving death and destruction in its 
wake ; and the other is that hogs which contract the 
disease usually die. 

1 shall not attempt to deal with this subject in a 
scientific way, but shall deal with it rather from a practi- 
cal standpoint. Much that I know, in fact most all that 
1 do know, has been learned in the school of bitter ex- 
perience, and the lessons were sometimes very costly. 



122 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

Before entering further into this subject I desire to 
notice what to me is the most hopeful promise lield out 
by any of the investigators. In this, as in all other great 
searches after truth, some men have stood far in ad- 
vance of their fellows. The only ray of hope I see held 
out to the swine raiser comes in the promise ot im- 
munity through prevention. Some of the investigators 
have contended that the animals could be rendered 
cholera proof by inoculation with a virus containing the 
germs of the disease especially prepared for the 
purpose. They have not as yet been able to render 
this practical, for the reason that the virus would some- 
times produce the genuine hog cholera anc' kill the hogs 
operated on. The unsolved problem seems to be to 
cultivate the germs in a form mild enough. 

That they will in the end be successful I have not 
the slightest doubt. How long we may have to wait 
before they will attain success I cannot say, but that 
they will succeed in the end I know from what is gen- 
erally conceded in regard to the disease, and that is 
that a hog once having the disease will never take it 
a second time. This being the case, all that remains 
to be done is to cultivate a virus sufficiently mild as 
not to endanger the life of the animal and of sufficient 
strength to produce the disease in a light form. 

Another and somewhat more recent means of pre- 
venting the disease is the serum or antitoxin cure. It 
consists ni introducing into the system of the animal a 
serum which enables the body to more successfully 
combat the disease. The Government officials seem 
to be highly pleased with the results so far and seem to 
believe that relief from the drer.d disease is likely to 



HOG CHOLERA. 123 

come through this means. The serum produced last 
year, wherever used m cholera-infected herds, saved 
over eighty per cent, of the animals. It is easily ap- 
plied, and its good effects in sick hogs are seen almost 
immediately. 

That hog cholera will ever be successfully treated 
wath medicine I doubt, but that it will be prevented in 
time I firmly believe. The whole trend of investiga- 
tion seems to be in that direction, and I feel sure suc- 
cess awaits their efforts. Till then I suppose we must 
make use of the best means at our disposal to combat 
the disease. 

Page after page has been written as a means of 
telling hog cholera, but much of it is difficult of com- 
prehension to the average reader. If you have never 
had it in your herd you are to be congratulated on 
your good fortune ; and if you ever do, when you are 
done with it you may not have as many hogs as you 
did before, but rest assured of one thing, and that is 
you will know hog cholera when you see it again. As 
a rule hogs do not look well for weeks before an attack. 
At other times it will come like a bolt of lightning from 
a clear blue sky. The first thing noticeable is a loss of 
appetite ; the hair will look harsh and dry ; sometimes 
a slight cough will be noticeable, at other times not. 
The disease is sometimes of slow development, at other 
times quite rapid. Instead of the sprightly, rapid 
movement so characteristic of the young and growing 
hog, he moves slowly and indifferently; he looks gaunt 
and tired ; his back is arched, and he moves his hind 
legs with a dragging motion; his temperature will most 
likely be high, probably from 104 to 108 — the normal 



124 HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

temperature of the hog is from looto 102. His bowels 
may be costive or the discharges may be thin and 
watery in substance, but usually black or dark in color, 
emitting an offensive odor peculiar to the disease. 

The disease may be of a lingering character and 
the animals linger for weeks, or they may die in three 
or four days. Usually the lingering type is less fatal 
than the more rapid forms of the disease. Hogs 
which discharge freely in the first stages of the disease 
are more likely to recover than when the bowels 
remain constipated. Dark blue spots will often appear 
under the skin. The bowels will be more or less in- 
flamed inside ; in the small intestines and sometimes 
in the stomach will be found ulcers ; this, however, is 
not common in the first stages of the disease. The 
bladder will most likely be full of a dark thick sub- 
stance, showing that the kidneys, and in fact the whole 
internal organism, are affected. 

If I were to say what I thought was the best thing 
that could possibly be done when cholera appears in a 
herd, I would unhesitatingly say, take the well hogs to 
clean new quarters where no hogs have been for years. 
Then if more of them take sick move them again, and 
it is my belief based on actual experience that more 
can be accomplished in this way than by the use of all 
the medicine in the country. For various reasons it is 
not always possible to move hogs, and in that case 
treatment may be resorted to, sometimes with fairly 
good results. The treatment should consist in separat- 
ing the well from the sick hogs, and in dividing the sick 
hogs according to age and size and severity of the at- 
tack. I do not think that more than four or five hogs 



HOG CHOLERA. I25 

should be in the same pen, and fewer would be still 
better. Feed but little, and let that be food which is 
easily digested. Use air-slacked lime and crude car- 
bolic acid freely as a disinfectant. Use it both on the 
hogs and on the ground, in the sleeping places, on the 
fences and in the drinking vessels. As much depends 
on a thorough use of disinfectants as upon any other 
thing. If the bowels are constipated give something to 
move them. If too loose give something to check them. 
In short, use good common horse sense (so to speak) 
and you will usually succeed very well. I have found 
nothing better than salts or oil to move the bowels, and 
I have tried nothing with better results to check them 
than a few drops of crystal carbolic acid. I know of 
no food better, if indeed as good, for sick hogs than 
ship stuff, or middlings as it is sometimes called ; it 
seems to digest easily and is soothing to the bowels. 

If the weather is wet and cold keep the hogs dry 
and warm. In wet weather (if not too warm) keep 
the hogs in a floored pen, or at least in a pen where no 
water will lie in sinks or holes, as dirty water is one of 
the worst things a sick hog can possibly have. If the 
weather is warm, shelter the hog from heat. In other 
words, make him as comfortable as possible. 

Let it be borne constantly m mind that much de- 
pends on good nursing. It would seem natural and 
reasonable that an animal afflicted as he is would do 
best if allowed plenty of fresh water to drink, but 
actual experience demonstrates that a greater number 
recover when the supply of water is limited than when 
it is not. I do not pretend to say why it is so, but ex- 
perience has taught me that it is. 



126 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

Hogs that are very sick should be kept by them- 
selves, as others seem to disturb them, and often tlieir 
recovery depends on being perfectly still at the critical 
period of the disease. I have never been successful in 
drenching hogs ; I have sometimes done it, and some- 
times they recovered and at other times they did not, 
but even when they did recover there was nothing to 
prove that the drenching had anything to do with it. 
As a rule hogs that are too sick to eat die. All hogs 
that die of cholera, or of any other disease for the 
matter of that, should be burned and not buried, as 
abundant evidence can be produced to prove that 
the carcasses of hogs dying of cholera have been the' 
cause of an outbreak years afterward. Hence, I say 
by all means burn all dead hogs as the only absolutely 
safe way of disposing of them. The burning operation 
is very simple. Lay the bodies across two logs, sticks 
or pieces of iron that will keep them up oH the ground 
so that the fire can get under them, and the grease 
from their own bodies will usually do the work, with a 
little wood or corn cobs added occasionally. 

How can we guard against the disease so as to 
prevent it is a question easily asked but not so easily 
answered. Men with medicine to sell will tell you they 
can, but my belief, based on bitter experience, is that 
they cannot. 

Experience teaches that the disease more com- 
monly appears in large herds than in small ones. The 
moral of this, then, is easily understood. Do not keep 
hogs in large droves. I do not believe that over twenty- 
five or thirty hogs at most should long remain together, 
and half the number would be infinitely better and safer 



HOG CHOLERA. 



127 



in every way. Hogs oi difterent sizes and ages should 
not be kept together, excepting of course sows and 
suckHng pigs. Hogs should not be kept on the same 
ground from year to year if it can possibly be avoided. 
Plow up the lots and pens and cultivate them for a year 
or two ; it will greatly assist in keeping your lots free 
f'-om the germ. The disease is much more prevalent 
in the summer and fall months than in other seasons of 




TOO MANY CORN COBS HERE. 



the year. Then as far as is possible reduce the number 
of hogs on the farm at this season of the year. 

If your neighbor's hogs have the disease, stay away 
from his pens and be sure he stays away from yours. 
Shoot a crow, a buzzard, or a stray dog that comes on 
your place as unhesitatingly as you would kill a mad 
dog. This trio in my opinion does more to scatter the 
disease than all the other causes combined. If your 
hogs are fit or any way near fit to go to market when 
the disease makes its appearance in the neighborhood. 



128 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

sell them without delay. "A bird in hand is worth 
two in a bush." If your hogs have cholera this year, 
don't get discouraged and quit, but try it again, on 
fresh ground. 

If your brood sows have passed through the cholera, 
keep them ; they are valuable. They will never again 
have the disease, and their pigs are not nearly so apt to 
contract it as pigs from sows that have not had the 
disease. Look out for streams which come down from 
some neighbor above you. This has been found a fre- 
quent cause of cholera outbreaks. The germs of hog 
cholera possess great vitality, and will live in the soil, 
in moist matter and especially in water, for months. 

If you feed corn, rake the cobs together often and 
burn them; pour water on the coals and then put salt 
on the charcoal thus made and you have an excellent 
preventive for diseases, with little or no cost. Keep 
your hogs, excepting brood sows, ready for market. 
It may come handy some day. Strong, vigorous hogs 
are less liable to contract the disease than hogs of less 
strength and vigor. Then breed and feed for both these 
things. Eternal vigilance in hog breeding, as in other 
kinds of business, is the price of success. 

Here is a formula for the treatment of hog cholera 
that is probably as good as any, which is not saying 
much. It is suggested by the Department of Agri- 
culture : 

Sulphur I pound. 

Wood charcoal i pound. 

Sodium chloride 2 pounds. 

Sodium bicarbonate 2 pounds. 

Sodium hyposulphite 2 pounds. 

Sodium sulphate i pound. 

Antimony sulphide i pound. 



HOG CHOLERA. I29 

Thoroughly mix and give a large tablespoonful to 
each 200-pound hog, once a day. If the animal does 
not eat, add the medicine to a little water, thoroughly 
shake and give from a bottle by the mouth. If the 
animal will eat, mix the medicine with sloppy food. 
The same remedy is recommended as a preventive to 
those animals that do not as yet show signs of disease. 

If you have had cholera on your place, and you 
have small, inexpensive pens, burn them at once. In a 
piggery, burn all the litter and loose inexpensive parts; 
renew the floor, if possible, and disinfect the remainder 
by washing it with hot water and washing soda. After 
washing, apply with a whitewash brush, or better yet a 
spray pump, a solution of one part of carbolic acid to 
fifty parts of water. Then thoroughly whitewash. 
Treat the fences in the same way. Earth floors 
should be removed to a depth of at least six inches and 
the ground sprinkled with chloride of lime and a few 
days later a good coating of air-slacked lime. Don't 
put pigs in the quarters for at least six months, and, if 
possible, have them vacant ov^er the first winter. 

An Ohio breeder of large experience, in the 
Miami valley, where hog cholera first appeared in 
1856 and has recurred at frequent intervals, holds that 
drugs, virus and antitoxin have all been fairly tried 
sundry times by him and his neighbors. He believes 
that prevention will do more to hold in check the 
plague than drugs and hypodermic infusions. The 
most important help to prevent spread of disease is not 
to allow the hog farm to become infected with the 
excrement of diseased hogs. This can be done by 
quarantining the herd in a fields that is to be put under 



130 HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

cultivation the following year. This quarantine must 
be established as soon as the first pig is taken sick. 
If the disease is in the neighborhood, carefully watch 
for first symptoms of disorder. Do not wait until 
several are sick and scouring, for this excrement is 
loaded wiih germs of disease, and these germs may 
retain vitality many months when covered in the 
corners of pens, or filth of yards, or about an old straw- 
stack ; but when exposed to sunlight or dryness they 
lose vitality in a few days, and under some very dry- 
ing sunlight conditions in a few hours. Carefully 
observing these facts, he has in forty years been clear 
of hog cholera the year following an attack, and on 
until the disease has become epidemic in his neigh- 
borhood. After the herd has been placed in quaran- 
tine away from the permanent hog houses, lots and 
feeding floors, he kills and burns, or buries five feet 
deep, each animal as soon as it shows distinct 
symptoms of disease. They are burned or buried 
beside the quarantine, and in the field to be cultivated 
the following year. It requires nerve to kill breeding 
stock of great value, but they are as liable to 
spread and entail disease as any other, when once 
attacked. 

If, by any means, we can prevent spread of germs, 
by so much do we hold the disease in check. A farm, 
with its feed lots and pens and shelters infected by 
the excrement of the diseased, becomes as deadly a 
centre as the public stock-yards and filthy stock cars 
on the railroads, and these are so thoroughly infected 
that we can never safely take stock hogs from these 
to our farms. This is not theory, but well proven fact. 



HOG CHOLERA. I3I 

The large hog houses and adjoining lots, once in- 
fected by sick hogs, are so difficult to disinfect and make 
safe, that I have abandoned the use of mine except for 
feeding off the fatter hogs in the fall or early summer. 
As soon, then, as the drove is sold, the house and lots 
and feeding floor are cleaned and disinfected, and the 
houses and fences whitewashed and left open to sun- 
light and drying winds ; the brood sows and young pigs 
are not allowed there. By having a few portable pig 
houses for sows to farrow in, and kept there until the 
pigs are weaned, the houses can be taken down and 
whitewashed inside and out and exposed to sunshine 
and winds to destroy all germs. The lots in which 
the little houses were set are put under cultivation, 
and the houses set up again on new ground for next 
farrowing season. When any new breeding stock is 
brought to the farm, it is placed in a lot with one of 
these houses remote from other hogs, for at least 
three weeks. 

The theory of removing well hogs from sick ones 
is defective, and fails because there are in fact no well 
hogs in a herd where even one sick one has been over 
night. The only safe way is to treat all as diseased, 
and confine them to one field or lot that is not to be 
used by other stock until after a year or more of 
cultivation. By such care we can keep our farms 
healthful places, and go on growing and feeding hogs 
each year, and not be guilty of making our farm a 
new centre of disease. If, in addition to such pre- 
ventive measures, we could keep from our farms 
buzzards, birds, fowls, crows, opossums, dogs and 
men, that can readily carry the deadly germs of 



132 BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

disease, then we should not need any of the many 
nostrums that are adversised as sure cures. 

It is hard to get farmers to understand the nature 
of the deadly germs, and to cease harboring and 
multiplying them in the old feed lots and pigs pens, all so 
handy to the barn, corn crib and kitchen that they can- 
not be purified by fire as they need to be. 

When hog cholera once appears on a farm, the 
first thought should be not what cure can we get, but 
how can we keep the plague from becoming perma. 
nent, as it has become on many a farm, until the 
owner has ceased to grow hogs. 

A FEW CHOLERA DONT'S. 

Don't let your hog drink dirty, filthy water. 

Don't castrate pigs when cholera is in the neighborhood. 

Don't bring home cholera from the fairs and stock shows. 

Don't wait until your hogs are all dead before doing something. 

Don't forget to disinfect all quarters where sick hogs have 
been. 

Don't throw dead animals in a creek or river. Burn them 
every time. 

Don't put pigs in a field where there has been cholera for at 
least a year. 

Don't drag a dead animal over the ground. Carry it on a 
plank or in a box and burn all. 

Don't keep your hogs in a field along a railroad if you can 
help it. Railroads often spread the disease. 

Don't overcrowd. It is responsible for many troubles and 
multiplies directly the chances of all contagious diseases. 

Don't forget to be considerate of your neighbors. If you have 
cholera, put up a sign, "Hog Cholera, Keep Out,''' and insist 
upon it. 

Don't immediately introduce new animals into your herd. Put 
them by themselves awhile, at least three weeks, until you are sure 
they have no cholera about them. 

Don't fail to have plenty of charcoal around where the hogs 
can get at it. It acts as a condiment and preventive. An excellent 
plan is to use up the corn cobs in this way. Gather them into a 
pile, and when they are thoroughly ablaze, put out the fire by throw- 
ing water or earth over the pile. 



Chapter XXI. 



OTHER PIG AILMENTS. 




It is hard to doctor a sick hog. Better never let them get sick, 
by giving range, pastiirage and a chance to be natural and keep 
clean. — John Tucker. 

Pig ailments are numerous ; I 
shall speak only of some of the most 
common. I do not believe the great 
majority of the readers of this book 
care to know the scientific names of the different dis- 
eases. I believe that they will be more interested in 
knowing how to tell and how to treat them than to be 
able to call them by their scientific names, hence I 
shall leave the technical names out of the discussion. 
It is always best to give medicines mixed with food 
or drink where possible. If the animal refuses food or 
drink and it is necessary to administer drugs, it may be 
done by placing a stout chain (an ordinary harness 
breast chain does very well) within the mouth and well 
back between the jaws, which are thus kept from crush- 
ing the bottle. Two or three men are necessary for the 
undertaking, one or two to hold the chain and one to 
pour the medicine. The head should be well elevated, 
which places the pig on his haunches. Do not pour 
the medicine fast enough to strangle the animal. 

Hogs will not do well when the skin is covered 
with filth. Bad air will bring on coughs ; all corn for 



134 BIGGLE SWINE EOOK. 

food, fever ; a wet bed, rheumatism ; and a big bunch 
together will breed disease. With a clean skin, good 
air, a variety of food, a dry bed and a few together, and 
lots of out-of-doors, they will do well. 

When at pasture they find many roots, nuts and 
pebbles, besides being continually active, which does 
more than food for their hearty health, rapid and easy 
digestion and speedy, profitable growth. 

I hope that American farmers who raise hogs on 
such foods as grass, clover, grain and milk will lose 
no opportunity to condemn the feeding of pigs upon 
slaughter-house refuse and such disgusting, offensive 
and disease-breeding material. Hogs fed on the offal 
of animals are only too liable to be infested with trich- 
inae ; and the whole idea of giving such stuff to hogs 
is a wrong one, tending only to bring the use of pork 
for human food into disrepute. Slaughter-house waste 
should be converted into fertilizer, of course ; not 
given to pigs and rats, nor allowed to go to decay. 
Some of our neighborhood slaughter-houses are dis- 
creditable ; yet thither not a few hogs are taken for 
butchering. The Government is beginning to point 
out some of these evils through its meat inspectors. 

Thumps. — This disease is quite common (especially in the 
early spring) and is exceedingly hard to handle when once con- 
tracted. More can be done to prevent than to cure. You visit 
the sow and litter in the morning to give them their accus- 
tomed feed, and you notice that one of the fattest and plumpest 
ones does not leave his bed as do the others. You enter the 
sleeping room and compel him to come out, which he does some- 
what reluctantly, and you will notice that his sides move with 
a peculiar jerking motion, and if allowed he will soon return 
to his bed. Rest assured he has thumps, and nine chances to 
one he will die. It is caused by fatty accumulations about the 



OTHER riG AILMENTS. 135 

breast, which interfere with its action, and the lungs work hard 
—pump for dear life to keep up the heart's action — to send the 
blood through the body. The pig is faint because of feeble circu- 
lation, and he is cold, and soon dies from exhaustion or weakness. 
He has no strength to suck or move. Poor little thing! 

To prevent thumps, get over into the pen several times a day 
and hustle the little pigs about the pen ; also stint the sow so that 
she will give less milk. Pigs when they stirabout, and when they 
are thin in flesh, rarely have thumps. 

I have sometimes succeeded by shutting them out in the sun- 
shine for an hour or two each day, but usually they die. Thumps 
rarely occurs among pigs farrowed after the weather is fine, but 
does quite frequently occur among pigs farrowed in the early 
spring. If the weather is cold and stormy and the sow and litter 
keep their bed much, then be on the lookout for thumps. Guard 
against it by compelling both sow and litter to exercise in the 
open air. 

Cankerous Sore Mouth is a disease which is quite com- 
mon and which if not promptly taken in hand is often quite fatal. 
When pigs are from a few days to two weeks old, you may notice 
a slight swelling of the lips or a sniffling in the nose. An exami- 
nation will show a whitish spongy growth on the sides of the 
mouth just inside the lips or around the teeth. This is cankerous 
sore mouth, and if not taken promptly in hand will result in the 
death of the entire litter, and will sometimes spread to other litters. 

Some claim the disease is caused by damp and filthy beds, 
others say it comes from a diseased condition of the sow, and still 
others claim it is caused by the little pigs fighting over the teats 
and wounding each other with their sharp teeth, and stoutly aver 
that if the teeth are promptly removed no case of sore mouth 
will ever occur. I am inclined to believe there is some truth in 
each of these claims. I do not believe that the wounds made by 
fighting will alone produce the disease, but it is quite reasonable 
to conclude that the wound furnishes a place for the germ to begin 
its work. 

Hold the pig firmly and with a knife or some cutting instru- 
ment remove all the spongy foreign growth, and be sure you get 
it all even though the pig may squeal and the wound bleed ; your 
success in treating the disease will depend largely on the thor- 
oughness with which you remove this foreign growth. After re- 



136 BIGGLE SWINE liOOK, 

moving the fungous growth apply an ointment made of glycerine 
and carbolic acid in about the proportion of one part of the acid 
to from five to eight parts glycerine. Repeat this each day for 
three or four days and the disease will usually yield. You may 
discover in a day or two after commencing treatment that you 
did not succeed in removing all the cankerous growth at first, 
and if so, repeat the cutting operation till you do remove it all. 

Another treatment which I have heard recommended but 
which I have never tried, is to catch the diseased pig and dip his 
nose and mouth up to his eyes in chlora naptholeum without dilut- 
ing it. This is certainly easily done and is highly commended 
by the person suggesting it. 

Is the disease contagious ? I do not believe it is in the usually 
accepted meaning of the term. I have often had one litter affected 
and other litters in an adjoining pen show no signs of the disease. 
Hence I have concluded that while it is possible for one pig to 
communicate the disease to another of the same litter, I think it 
quite improbable that it will be communicated to one of another 
litter. So firmly do I believe this that when I find one litter 
affected I give myself no uneasiness about other litters. Pure 
peroxide of hydrogen, applied with sponge or syringe after re- 
moval of the fungous growth, is very good treatment. 

Blind Staggers, Indigestion, Sick Stomach, Founder.— 
Causes, over-feeding, especially common with new corn; sour 
or decayed food. Sudden warm sultry weather predisposes in 
highly fed hogs. Insufficient exercise is also a predisposing cause. 

Symptoms. — Loss of appetite, bowels constipated, or maybe 
diarrhoea. In some severe cases blind staggers and great pale- 
ness of mouth and nose, coldness of surface of body ; abdomen may 
be distended and drum-like from contained gases. 

Treatment. — Remove sick animals, provide clean, dry, well 
ventilated quarters, with chance for exercise, and fresh earth and 
water. If animal will eat, give light feed. Give charcoal in lump 
form, also mix soda bicarbonate in food at rate of two tablespoon- 
fuls per day to each lialf-grown animal. It is rarely necessary to 
drench with medicine. If recovery begins, use care not to again 
feed too much. 

Milk Fevkr occurs in sows immediately after farrowing or 
within the first few days afterwards. The symptoms are loss of 
milk, swollen, hard condition of the milk glands, which are more 



OTHER PIG AILMENTS. 137 

or less painful on pressure. Sow may not allow the pigs to suck ; 
she may lie flat on her belly or stand up, and in extreme cases the 
sow has spells of delirium, in which she may destroy her young. 

Cause. — Injudicious feeding, overfeeding on milk-producing 
foods. Do not feed sow quite full rations for few days just before 
and after farrowing. 

Treatment. — Give sow plenty of cool clean water ; bathe the 
swollen glands for half hour at a time with water as warm as she 
will bear, dry thoroughly with soft cloth and give good dry pen. 
If bowels seem constipated give the sow internally one-half pint 
pure linseed oil. (Never use the boiled linseed oil used by 
painters; it is poisonous.) If the sow starts killing her young, or 
has no milk for them, it is best to take most of them, or all, away 
from her and feed by hand with spoon or ordinary rubber nipple 
and bottle. For this use one part boiled water and three parts 
cow's milk. The pigs may be returned to the sow if her milk 
returns. 

Scours among pigs is another common and very troublesome 
though not dangerous disease. This disease is not confined to 
any particular season, but is more common in the wet, damp 
weather of April and early May than in other seasons of the year. 

As in thumps, remove the cause. This disease is almost in- 
variably caused by some improper food eaten by the sow. A sour 
swill barrel is often the cause. But to be doubly sure that I make 
no mistake in removing the cause I stop all feed and give nothing 
but water to drink and possibly a little dry corn to eat for three or 
four days, and I seldom fail to bring about a speedy cure. It 
should be borne in mind that pigs once affected will be more 
liable to a recurrence of the disease than those never afTected, and 
greater care should be used with them for some weeks till they 
fully recover. 

Constipation. — Cause, improper feeding, exclusive grain 
diet, lack of exercise. Not dangerous in itself, but frequently 
followed by prolapsus of the rectum, or what is commonly called 
piles. The constant straining causes this. The only remedy is 
laxative food and exercise. The protruding bowel must be washed 
clean as soon as seen and well covered with olive oil or lard. It 
should then be returned by applying firm pressure with the hand, 
and when once in place should be retained by three or more 
stitches of waxed linen or heavy silk thread, passed from side to 



I3S HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

side through the margins of the opening, care being ustd to take 
a deep hold in the skin. 

While this operation is being done the animal should be held 
by the hind legs by two assistants, thus elevating the hind 
quarters. Allow stitches to remain two or three weeks. 

Rheu.matism. — A disease of the joints, manifested by pain, 
heat and lameness, with swelling of one or several joints. There 
may be high fever and loss of appetite. May be acute and rapid 
in its course, or slow, chronic and resulting in permanent enlarge- 
ments of the bones of the legs, especially the knee and hock. 

Causes. — Primarily deranged digestion, lack of exercise; 
dampness and exposure to draughts of cold air also a cause. The 
tendency to rheumatism is hereditary in certain families of hogs. 

Treatment. — Endeavor to prevent by proper exercise, food 
and attention to surroundings. Do not breed rheumatic speci- 
mens even if fu'ly recovered from lameness. In acute cases an 
adult hog should have twice or three times daily one drachm 
salicylate soda. 

Asthma sometimes occurs in adult hogs. 

Symptoms. — Shortness of breath on least exercise, noisy 
breathing, more or less intermittent. Do not breed; butcher early. 

Congestion of the Lungs sometimes occurs, the result of 
driving: or chasing. May be rapidly fatal. 

Symptoms. — Sudden shortness of breath and sudden great 
weakness. The hog is not adapted to rapid driving ; if it must 
be driven at all, give plenty of time. 

Pneumonia (Lung Fever) may follow congestion of the 
lungs; may be induced by crowding too many hogs together, 
when they heat and become moist, after which they are in poor 
condition to withstand cold. 

Symptoms. — Loss of appetite, chills, short cough, quick 
breathing. 

Treatment. — Separate sick at once from the drove ; give dry 
quarters with abundance of dry bedding; tempt appetite with 
small quantities of varied food. Apply to sides of chest, enough 
to moisten the skin, twice daily, alcohol and turpentine equal 
parts ; continue until skin becomes somewhat tender. 

Tetanus (Lock-Jaw). — Caused by introduction into the sys- 
tem of the tetanus bacteria, which gains entrance through a wound. 

Symptoms. — A stiffness of more or less the entire muscular 



OTHER PIG AILMENTS. 139 

system, generally most marked in the jaws, which are greatly 
stiffened. Eating very slow, or entirely stopped; appetite not lost. 
Treatment.— Some cases recover if carefully nursed. Give 
nourishing drinks, elevate trough or bucket so the patient can get 
its snout into the drink ; give dissolved in hot water and mixed 
with the slop forty grains bromide of potash two or three times 
daily until improvement is noticed. Do not attempt to drench. 
Any wound which seems to be a cause should be cleansed and wet 
often with five per cent, solution of carbolic acid and water. 

Lice. — Very commonly found upon hogs. They are intro- 
duced by new purchases or by visiting animals. 

Caution — Examine the newly purchased hog well on this 
point before placing with the drove. Hog lice are quite large and 
easily detected on clean white animals, but not readily on dark or 
dirty skins. 

Remedy. — Wash well with soap and warm water, if weather 
is not too cold, then apply enough petroleum and lard, equal 
parts, to give the skin a complete greasing. If weather is too 
cold for washing, clean with stiff brush. Creolin one part to 
water five parts is also a safe and sure remedy. Two or more 
applications are necessary at intervals of four or five days to 
complete the job. The woodwork of pens and rubbing places 
must be completely whitewashed. 

Mange.— Caused by a microscopic parasite which lives in the 
skin at the roots of the bristles. 

Symptoms. — Intense itching with redness of the skin from the 
irritation of rubbing. Rather rare, but very contagious. 

Treatment. — Separate diseased animals ; scrub them thor- 
oughly with warm water and strong soap ; apply ointment com- 
posed of lard, one pound ; carbonate of potash, one ounce ; flor. 
sulphur, two ounces ; wash and re-apply every four days. 

Maggots. — The larvae of the ordinary blow-fly frequently 
infest wounds on hogs during the summer months. Watch all 
wounds during hot weather; keep them wet frequently with 
creolin one part and water six pans, or five per cent, watery 
solution carbolic acid. If the maggots gain entrance to the 
wound, apply either above remedies freely, or ordinary turpen- 
tine with a brush or common oil can. 

Round Worms. — Very common in shotes and young hogs, not 
apparently harmful, unless in great numbers, when they cause 



140 BIGGLE SWIXE BOOK. 

loss of flesh. They may be exterminated by keeping the hog 
without food for twenty-four hours, and giving to each shote or 
old pig one tablespoonful of turpentine thoroughly beaten up 
with one egg and one-half pint of milk. Good food and care will 
generally prevent serious injury from round worms. Hogs in- 
fested should not be pastured with others, or where others may 
pasture within a year. The adult worms are passed off" with the 
manure, and being filled with eggs, render the pasture unsafe for 
many months, as the eggs withstand extreme and long continued 
exposure I lost several shotes, in fact eight out of a lot of nine. 
They would come to the trough and drink, apparently all right, 
then bound into the air, squeal and lie down and die. I was then 
told they had throat worms. I caught the only remaining one and 
poured down its throat a teaspoonful of spirits of turpentine. It 
squealed as loi^dly as any of them, but lived and raised a fine 
litter of pigs. 

Paralysis of the Hind Parts. — When hogs are affected by 
worms in the kidneys, they are sore across the loins and seem to 
have lost the use of their hind parts. When forced to do so they 
will get up and walk, but when the hinder parts are paralyzed 
they will not get up and cannot walk. For the last trouble, stimu- 
late the surface with washing and rubbing with hot water, and 
keep the bed dry and clean. Turn them over and be patient; 
they will generally get over it. They must have cooling and lax- 
ative foods. For worms in the kidneys, rub the back across the 
loins with spirits of turpentine every other day for a week, and if 
not better give a dose at the mouth on an empty stomach, one or 
two tablespoon fuls according to size. Do this two or three times. 
Dilute the turpentine with milk. 

The most common form of tapeworm in man is derived from 
eating pork which contains the larval form of this parasite. The 
embryos are visible to the naked eye in infected pork ; each em- 
bryo is surrounded by a small bladder-like sac, about the size of 
a grain of shot. When such pork is eaten by man in uncooked, or 
partly cooked, condition, the embryo worms develop into adult 
worms, which reach many feet or yards in length. The mature 
worm in man is continually throwing off sections of its body 
filled with eggs. If these are eaten by the hog, they hatch in the 
hog's stomach and bore their way into the flesh of the pig. 

Prevention. — Avoid the use of infected pork. Prevent hogs 



OTHER PIG AILMENTS. 14I 

having access to contents of water closets, or to land fertilized by 
the contents of water closets. 

Trichina. — A disease of man due to eating pork containing 
trichinae. Thorough cooking destroys the parasite, but infected 
meat is not safely used, and is condemned at slaughter-house in- 
spection. 

Prevention. — The feeding of hogs upon slaughter-house offal 
is a cause for spreading the parasites, and should not be prac- 
tised. Rats are infected by eating slaughter-house offal, and as 
the rats are frequently eaten by the pig, infection likely often is 
the result. Exterminate the rats and do not feed offal. 

Tuberculosis (Consumption). A contagious disease com- 
mon in man, cattle and not rare in the hog. 

Symptoms. — Loss of flesh, cough, diarrhoea, swelling about 
the head and neck, which may open and discharge with little 
tendency to heal ; death in from few weeks to months. Post 
mortem shows various sized tubercles, which may be situated in 
any part of the body, most commonly in the bowels, lungs, liver, 
or glands of the neck. 

Causes. — Direct contagion from other hogs, but generally 
from feeding milk from tuberculous cows, or by eating butcher 
offal from such cows. 

Prevention.— Care as to the source of the milk fed ; if suspi- 
cious, boiling will render it safe. Do not feed butcher offal ; sep- 
arate suspicious hogs at once, and if satisfied they are tubercu- 
lous, kill and bury deep, or burn them. The tuberculin test can 
be applied to the remainder of drove, as without it it is impos- 
sible to say how many may be diseased. 

Wounds generally heal readily in the hog if kept clean and 
free from maggots. The result of neglected castration wounds 
is sometimes serious. Have the animal clean as possible when 
castrated, and endeavor to keep it clean and give opportunity for 
abundant exercise until wound is healed. There is probably 
nothing better and safer to apply to wounds of the hog than 
creolin one part, water six parts. 

Travel Sickness. — Similar to ordinary sea-sickness in man ; 
very common in shipping pigs by wagon. 

Symptoms. — Vomiting, diarrhoea, great depression ; seldom if 
ever fatal. May be rendered much less severe by very light feed- 
ing before shipment. 



142 



BIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 




Swine, like human beings, suffer from wet feet. 

The hog, unlike the farmer, grunts when grateful 

Don't breed " squealers ; " the well-bred hog is seldom noisy. 

Bury the idea that anything is good enough to feed the hog. 

Sows should be weeded out as well as cows. 
Keep only good milkers. 

A tame pig will turn its owner a profit, a wild 
one is a nuisance on any farm. 

Don't keep the boar with crooked legs, no 
matter what his pedigree may be. 

Many old farmers scrub scabby pigs with but- 
"" '^^ termilk, and it proves to be a good thing. 

The old legal fence in Pennsylvania was re- 
quired to be horse high, bull strong and hog tight. 

Kill a runt that won't grow with proper care, and in nine cases 
out often you will find traces of organic disease. 

Sudden changes are usually to be avoided, but the change 
from a wet bed to a dr\' one cannot be too sudden. 

Do not compel the brood sow to climb a steep plank to get 
into her pen : it causes serious injury and difficult births. 

It has been determined by actual experiment that poor feed- 
ing is the great cause for extra development in the length of the 
snout. 

All the improved breeds are able to equal their advertised per- 
formances, but it requires skill on the part of 
the breeder and feeder. 

Here is a good way to lead a little pig. 
Tie the rope around his throat so it will nut 
choke him, then carry it back and make a loop 
back of his legs. He can't get away if the rope 
doesn't break and you can hold him. 

A friend of mine has a box with a slit at the bottom opening 
into a trough in which he keeps constantly a mixture of one 
pound of copperas, one pound of sulphur, one pound of black 
antmiony, one-quarter pound of saltpetre, one quart of salt and 
one-half bushel of wood ashes. He has it in a dry place where 
all his hogs can get at it and thinks this is one reason why he has 
never had cholera on his place. 

It used to be quite common in some sections 
to see pigs out to pasture and along the roads 
with yokes so they could not scramble through 
the fences. The yoke and manner of applying it 
are shown in the illustration. Now-a-days good 
wire fencing that is hog proof is so cheap and so 
universally used that I have not seen a yoked hog for a long time 
in my neighborhood. 





Chapter XXII. 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. 




Let the motto be, better pork at less cost. — ^John Tucker. 

To tell the weight of swine 
measure the girt in inches back 
of the shoulder, and the length 
in inches from the square of the 
rump to a point even with the 
point of the shoulder blade. 
CHESTER WHITE. Multiply the girt and length and 
divide the product by 144, multiply the result by 
eleven if the girt is less than three feet, or by sixteen 
if over three feet. The answer will be the number of 
pounds of pork. If the animal is lean and lank, a de- 
duction of five per cent, from the above should be made. 
Pork can be made better by feeding for quality 
rather than for quantity. 

Pork can be made at less cost (far less than the 
average) by giving only the requisite amount of food, 
with muscle-making ingredients properly proportioned 
to fat-making ingredients. 

These are the two lines along which farmers must 
seek increased profits in pork production. 

It seems strange to say that skim-milk is really 
worth more for food than whole milk, and farmers do 
not generally so regard it. Yet such is a fact, pro- 
vided it be fed in connection with corn or other carbo- 



144 HIGGLE SWINE BOOK. 

naceous food. All farmers who are careless of skim- 
milk are wasting with every loo pounds an article that 
is capable of producing twenty cents' worth of pork or 
ten cents' worth of manure. 

Skim-milk should be fed sweet, it should be fed 
often (three or four times a day) and it should be fed 
warm. 

I have a great many old and successful farmer 
neighbors, but find that most of them are still depend- 
ing solely on the lessons of practical (and sometimes 
very costly) experience. Few of them take the trouble 
to apply arithmetic to stock-feeding operations. The 
younger ones, on the other hand, are on the alert, and 
are well read in recent farm literature, and these boys, 
as I call them, are sure to be heard from before many 
years. They will be the leading farmers of the future ; 
not better men than their fathers, nor better citizens, 
but making money out of farming under conditions alto- 
gether different and vastly more scientific than pre- 
vailed a generation ago. 

Of course, I cannot lay particular stress on the 
breed of hogs which happens to be my favorite, for my 
local surroundings are of course different from those 
of many other farmers who will read this book, and 
who have dift'erent conditions from those which have 
determined my choice. I cheerfully admit that there 
are a half score of first-class breeds now well estab- 
lished in America, and if I should be compelled to 
change my home I might also be compelled to change 
my breed of hogs. 

Cleanly, well-managed operations will result in 
pork of a superior quality, because of the better health 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. 145 

and more rapid growth of the pigs ; and cleanliness 
will in all cases be accompanied by a large manure 
heap. 

I give herewith the names and addresses of the 
various blooded swine breeders' associations, so that 
those desiring special information in regard to any 
particular breed may know where to get it. 

American Berkshire Association. Secretary, Frank S. Springer, 
Springfield, 111. 

American Chester White Record Association. Secretary, 
Ernst Freigau, Columbus, O. 

American Duroc Jersey Swine Breeders' Association. Sec- 
retary, T. B. Pearson, Thorntown, Ind. 

American Essex Association, The. Secretary, F. M. Srout, 
McLean, 111. 

American Hampshire Swine Record Association, Secretary, 
E. C. Stone, Armstrong, 111. 

American Poland China Record Co. Secretary, W. M. McFad- 
den, Union Stock Yards, Chicago, 111. 

American Tamworth Swine Record Association. Secretary, 

E. N. Ball, 1237 Volland street, Ann Arbor, Mich. 

American Yorkshire Club. Secretary, Harry J. Kruii, White 
Bear Lake, Minn. 

Cheshire Swine Breeders' Association. Secretary, E. S. Hill, 
Freeville, N. Y. 

International Ohio Improved Chester Record Association. 
Secretary, Herbert A. Jones, Himrods, N. V. 

Michigan Swine Breeders' Association. Secretary, E. N. 
Ball, 1237 Volland street, Ann Arbor. Mich. 

National Duroc Jersey Record Association. Secretary, 
J. R. Pfander, 604 Main street, Peoria, 111. 

National Mule Foot Hog Record Association. Secretary, 
W. H. Morris, Indianapolis, Ind. 

National Poland China Record Co. Secretary, A. M. Brown, 
Winchester, Ind. 

O. I. C. Swine Breeders' Association. Secretary, J. C. Hiles, 
30 Vincent street, Cleveland, O. 

Ohio Swine Breeders' Association. Secretary, Ernst Freigau, 
Columbus, O. 

Standard Chester White Record Association. Secretary, W. 
H. Morris, Indianapolis, Ind. 

Standard Poland China Record Association. Secretary, George 

F. Woodworth, Maryville, Mo. 



INDEX. 



Ashes 62, 71 

Asthma 138 

Auction Sales 85 

Bacon 92, 101 

Bacon Hog 82 

Berkshire Breed 16 

Blind Staggers 136 

Brood Sow 28 

Carbonaceous Foods, List of 73 

Castration 37 

Charcoal . . 62, 71 

Cheshire Breed 19 

Chester White Breed . ... 16 
Cholera Remedy , . 128 

Congestion of the Lungs . . 138 

Constipation 137 

Consumption Hi 

Cooking Food 83 

Corn, Green 83 

Cutting up Carcass .... 91 
Duroc Jersey Breed .... 17 

Essex Breed 20 

External Hog, Parts of the 9 

Flooring 47 

Founder ... .... 136 

Gestation, Period of .... 29 

Head-Cheese 96 

Indigestion 136 

Jefferson County Pigs ... 19 

Jersey Red Breed 17 

Lard 94 

Lice 139 

Lockjaw 138 

Maggots 139 

Mange . . 139 

Meat Inspection 12 

Mess Pork 94 

Milk Fever 1316 



Nitrogenous Foods, List of 73 
Ohio Improved Chester 

White Breed .... 17 

Paralysis 140 

Pasture for Hogs . 46 

Pickling Pork .... 94, 97 

Pneumonia 138 

Poland China Breed . . .14 

Rheumatism 138 

Ringing Hogs 40 

Sausages . 95, loi 

Scalding Hogs 90 

Scoring Pigs 23 

Scours 137 

Scrapple 96 

Sick Stomach 136 

Silage 60 

Skim-milk 71 

Smoking 97 

Sore Mouth 135 

Souse 96 

Spaying 37 

Statistics 11 

Suffolk Breed 21 

Sugar Cured Hams . • • 93 

Swill 61 

Swill Barrel . ... 61, 113 

Swine Associations .... 145 

Tamwoith Breed 17 

Thumps 134 

Trichinae 141 

Troughs 54 

Vermin 139 

Victoria Breed 20 

Wolff's Tables 63 

Worms 139 

Wounds 141 

Yorkshire Breeds 18 

146 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 







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